
Class _ 
Book— 



THE PILGEIMAGE 



OF A 



PILGRIM EIGHTY 
YEARS. 



BY 



JOHS: ATWOOD, 

Veteran Fisherman of Cape Cod, 

Borain Provincetown, at 12.20 P. M., December 26, 1811. 



BOSTON. 
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 

1892. 



T\ 



'As 



Dedicated to 



Young America. 



THE AUTHOR'S PROSPECTUS. 

This book contains a great variety of novel subjects 
not to be found in any other book now in print. 

The author flatters himself that his path to wis- 
dom has never before been trodden by any man of 
learning. 

Hoping my friends and readers will find it smooth 
and level to the end, 

I remain your humble servant, 

JOHN ATWOOD. 



AT WOOD ON THE UNDERSTANDING. 

A CONUNDKUM, OR RIDDLE. 

What five tribes or nations when named express 
the whole understanding of man ? 

Whoever solves this riddle first shall receive double 
the price of this book as a prize for his wit. 

JOHN ATWOOD. 



MOTTO. 

What the wise man, Zophar, said to Job: 

Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find 
out the Almighty unto perfection? — Chapter xi., verse 7. 

It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than 
hell; what canst thou know? — Yerse 8. 

The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader 
than the sea. — Verse 9. 

Elihu's instructions 1o Job. — Chapter xxxv: 

Look unto the heavens and see; and heboid the clouds 
which are higher than thou. — Verse 5. 

If thou sinnest what doest thou against him, or if thy 
transgressions be multiplied, what doest thou against 
him ? — Verse 6. 

If thou be righteous what givest thou him? or what 
receiveth he of thine hand? — Verse 7. 

Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; and thy 
righteousness may profit the son of man. — Verse 8. 

Of God's great power in the leviathan, his answer to Job, 
chapter xli. : 

Canst thou draw out the leviathan with an hook? or his 
tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? — Verse 1. 

Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw 
through with a thorn. — Verse 2. 

FREE DISCUSSION 

Is like the air we breathe. If we have it not we die men- 
tally. 

Let two wrestle together the question to solve, 

If it be heaven, earth or hell, 

Let them test it well. 

If it be God, devil or man. 

Let them do the best they can. 

Whether they be aged or in youth, 

Let nothing stop them but the final truth. 



e 



CONTENTS. 



Preface 10 

Introduction . 17 

CHAPTER I. 

Visionary or spiritual part of my life, and its effects, for 

which i apologize ...... 25 

CHAPTER II. 
Psychology, or the hidden science of mind which 

teaches wisdom ....... 30 

CHAPTER III. 

The creation of this earth as given by the Gods and all 
things specified and guaranteed unto man as his 
property forever, a warrantee deed of all things 34 

CHAPTER lY. 

The evolution theory as given by the three contestants. 
Miller, Darwin and Atwoocl, with allusions to the 
characters called the authors of the four Gospels and 
the two letters written in the first century . 43 

CHAPTER V. 

The Immortality of the Soul triumphant, with quota- 
tions from the best Bible writers, and their views 
compared with those of the wise men of to-day, and 
what the immortal soul is, and what the mortal 
soul of man is 54 

CHAPTER YI. 

The problem of Time ; what it is when compared with 
all other forms; it is a standard that never moves, 
but is eternal. Characters of the fishermen of 
Galilee and their fish stories and pretended 
miracles 58 

CHAPTER YII. 

Statements of the religious orders; their faith and prac- 
tice, with allusions to their constitution and b3'-laws 66 
CHAPTER YIII. 

The cosmic beauty aud harmony of the heavenly 
bodies, with their marvellous adaptation of means 
to ends 74 

CHAPTER IX. 

The pilgrimage of several pilgrims, both ancient and 

modern, with Bible references .... 79 



CHAPTER X. 

The immortality of the soul of man defined by the evolu- 
tion theory. The omniscient God manifest in the 
flesh. A learned doctor's definition of the divinity 
of Jesus 88 

CHAPTER XL 

A discussion on the theory of creation, Atwood versus 
Hugh Miller, with reference to Charles Darwin's 
theory as far as it goes is accepted and finished . 92 

CHAPTER XII. 

Sectarianism is a fearful thing, and if it could be united 
it would destroy our government, civilly made by 
the people, the best in the world; and the relation- 
ship of Jesus to James, and their doctrine versus 
the bad boy, Judas ...... 97 

CHAPTER XIII. 

This chapter contains much information to the fisher- 
men and business men ot" Cape Cod concerning 
their rights, laws and enactments of the Legislature 102 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Daniel, the dreamer, and the wonderful story about 
God, the creation, and wonders of this earth, 
crooked horns, etc 109 

CHAPTER XV. 
The discussion between God's servants as teachers, with 
their true tracks somewhere, and man's rights as 
they are here meted out to man by the great 
Creator 112 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Evidences of the second creation as given in the testi- 
mony of the Lord God as recorded in the second 
and third chapters of Genesis, and by his holy 
prophets, with a continuation of questions asked 
wise theologians of to-day — Jacob wrestled with the 
angel in prayer — interviewed by reason . 120 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Origin of Christianity as gleaned from history, which 
is not all reliable, like other history; in order to 
understand and know the truth you must receive 
all the good that the opponent says of his enemy 
and the friend says that is contradictory to the 
general tenor of their history and put them together, 
and then you have something that is near the truth 129 

8 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

The alleifork-al allusion to Jesus and Jolni, and the 
quarrel between the apostles vvhieh led to John's 
leaving them and going back to the faith of his 
fathers and writing the book of Revelations against 
them — Paul not a pugilist or gladiator . . 137 

CHAPTER XIX. 
A variety of questions for Bible critics to answer, and a 
great variety of allegories and statements of tacts 
of my own observation 141 

CHAPTER XX. 

Reminiscences of the artistic and grand improvements 
of the past fifty years — A psychological and vision- 
ary anticipation of the great improvements that will 
be made in the next fifty years .... 147 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Antique play written by jEschylus and enacted in the 
theater at Athens before the Christian era, a pas- 
sion play called " Prometheus Bound," illustrating 
the agonies of a dying God, who gave his life to 
redeem mankind from death .... 152 
CHAPTER XXII. 

A sketch of my business life, and some of the inventions 
that proved to be a success, and have been adopted 

since . 164 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

A few of the w<mderful experiences of my life by occult 
science, with somnambulism of the cerebellum 
blended with the cerebrum, or the intellectual 
brain; man is wonderfully organized; the occult 
blending with the optic gives a clear vision of 
objects at a distance ...... 175 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Fish stories, allegories, conundrums, and parables . 188 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Moses, the learned magician of Egypt, and his law com- 
pared with the gospel of Jesus; Jesus endeavored 
to save his people from slavery and Roman bondage 191 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
Selections from early Christian authors of the first four 
centuries and their characters given by their friends, 
or written by themselves; this internal evidence 
shows them to be Christians. Lamentations; their 
woes multiplied 204 

9 



PREFACE. 



It will not be expected of me to write a book free 
from errors at my age of life, and without a common 
school education. 

Therefore my readers will make due allowance for 
all errors which may be discoA^ered. 

My motto is "Truth," and therefore I shall hew to 
the line, although the chips fly in my face. 

But I will make an effort to lay before my readers 
some things which will be new to them. 

If I succeed in presenting one idea or truth, in 
each subject which I purpose to treat, not heretofore 
known by some of my readers I shall thereby reach 
the standard at which I aim. 

As the subjects upon which I purpose to write are 
various I hope to be able to furnish many facts never 
before seen in print. 

Unknown facts ought to be very few and far 
between. 

Of course such statements of fact as I shall lay 
before you, claiming that they were hitherto un- 
known, must be original (not before made public), 
whether they concern natural history, science, or 
theology. 

I shall make only such statements as can be 

10 



demonstrated by my rule of the triangular square, 
where one positive will give two negatives, and the 
two negatives will prove the one positive. 

This problem has never before been adv^anced. 

It applies equalh^ to the present, and to the future, 
and will prove all I claim for it. 

It is an eye-opener. 

You have to-day only two parts of the problem of 
the creation, and therefore your history of that event 
is not complete, but you are at sea adrift, as Paul was 
on his voyage to Rome. 

I must apologize to my readers for imposing upon 
them the relation of a dream and vision in the first 
chapter, but I hope they will forgive me as it relates 
to the spiritual part of my life ; and as spirit ualit}^ in 
the early ages was the foundation of all religions, 
when young men dreamed dreams and old men saw 
visions. 

Now the power of dreams has become wonderfully 
less. Realities have taken their place. Science, that 
brilliant star, has risen in the West, and become the 
Goddess of Liberty, the indicator of man's freedom, 
our star the first to dawn on our hemisphere. 

Old stars are growing dim, and whereas all stars 
which have arisen in the East (the star of Bethlehem, 
of Egypt, and of Chaldea) have disappeared, our star 
hath grown to womanhood, and has put on the 
matrimonial robe and wedded the god of power, and 
obeyed the command of our creator to multiply and 
replenish the earth. - 

They have fulfilled their mission in part, as we see 
.a goodly number of little stars, and the family is still 

11 



increasing and sliedding light over the whole world. 

Our Venus, the goddess of liberty and beauty, is 
our star. We are the people, and our government is 
of the people, and for the people, and by the people. 

Quite a large portion of the glorified earth is ours, 
with its sunshine and rain. We shall ever live and 
move and have our being. 

We should be thankful for our good fortune. It is 
wonderful. 

When I look back eighty years and reflect on what 
science and art have done I am astonished. But I 
am not looking backwards for information, as the 
ministers do. It is for reflection. 

I look ahead and see the boy Young America 
grown to manhood, and strong and healthy. May 
his strength and shadow never be less. 

" Eternal Boyhood" should be the motto of nations. 
Ours has come to stay, while others have passed 
away. 

Selfishness and sin have put out the eyes of pro- 
gression. Man has looked away up beyond the clouds 
for information and guidance (but he didn't get it), 
and then sung " All things are vain here below." Is 
this the doctrine to teach Young America ? (Not a 
bit of it.) 

I am sorry for our preachers, for many of them are 
good men and may be mistaken in their calling, 
having been taught from their infancy the old doc- 
trine of Egypt, which has been remodelled from that 
language, now lost and dead. It was the "Eternal 
Boyhood of Individual Men," which proves itself false 
now. 



Daily reflections like the following selections from 
Pythagoras are worth more than gold : 

What have I learned, where have I been ? 

From all I have heard, from all I have seen, 

What know I more that's worth the knowing? 

What have I done that's worth the doing? 

What have I done that I should have shunned? 

What duty have I left undone, 

Or into what new follies run ? 

These self inquiries are the road 

That leads to virtue and to good. 

Whether one knows much or little, it is of the 
greatest Importance to know what one knows and 
why he knows it. 

The principal knowledge which one should possess 
is to be cognizant of the fact that all power outside 
of the physical organism is derived from the non- 
equilibrium of the sun's heat and light by friction 
and the polar forces, which are dark and cold, which 
contracts ; whereas the heat of the sun, that subtle 
manager of electricity, expands, which fills a 
vacuum on the earth, which is the cause of the 
movement of the air to restore an equilibrium. 

This omnipresent good is all the life there is out- 
side of organism ; yea, with its dear sun, it evolves 
all organisms. 

This process requires no intelligence, but is self- 
existing and eternal. 

Individual organism and development constitute 
the secondary life, with power to move and transmit 
its like and control the elements in part. 

Man being the microcosm or omniscient power will 

13 



continue to discover new wonders, and pass on, 
leaving millions of other wonders unexplored. 

So there will always be something new to be 
learned by mankind. Happy thought. 

In reference to the first creation of our earth I wish 
to say to my readers that the first chapter of Genesis 
contains an account of the whole formation of the 
earth and all things thereon, as I have described in 
this book. 

The Bible account varies just a little from the 
original, just enough to suit the wants of the age 
when it was copied. I will give you the variation : 

In the beginning the gods formed the earth (that 
is, the air and the sun), whose genial warmth spread 
over the face of that mighty deep and expanded that 
liquid of life. So vapor arose and formed into clouds, 
and swept over the dry land, to water the earth and 
produce vegetation. (This we find to be true, even 
know.) 

As the sun warmed the ocean and the wind gave 
it motion, which is active life, the fish were formed 
by the evolution of inert matter as stagnated water. 
And the birds of the air were formed in a similar 
manner. 

As you know, insects are evolved from pure water, 
which has become stagnated, and launched forth into 
the air with their wings spread. 

I have taken pure water just descended from the 
clouds, and by the aid of the sun and wind have 
formed mosquitoes. There had not been a single 
parent mosquito within one hundred miles for six 
months. 



14 



My readers must know that all life and motion are 
derived from the non-equilibrium of the sun and the 
polar forces. 

They also know that heat expands and cold con- 
tracts, a fact which causes a vacuum on the surface, 
the sun being the positive center of heat to expand 
above 32 degrees, and the two poles the negative 
below. 

This proves my theory, as there cannot be a center 
without two opposites ; neither can there be two 
opposites without a center. 

The sun and air are the cause of all animal and 
vegetable organization and life ; yet they both at times 
destroy life. 

But no candid person will say that they do it with 
malice aforethought, or that they have intelligence. 

I have endeavored in this work to separate truth 
from falsehood. Therefore I have found two distinct 
creations, thoroughly antagonistic. The first is 
founded on facts. The second is founded on dreams. 

The first book of the creation is the first book of 
Genesis, with slight variations. 

The second book is called the book of Job, and 
placed next to the book of Genesis in the first Bible's 
chronology. Thirty-nine chapters, with a little varia- 
tion or addition, comprise the book. 

The first two and last chapters are not a part of 

the original book, or dialogue, that shows what 

relationship man is to God. 

On those two books I rest m}^ case as regards the 

creation and ownership of this earth. 

My opponents can have all the other books of the 

15 



Bible, with Joseplius and all the alterations that 
have been made in it, which are many. And they 
prove themselves all alterations in the books, and 
to have been designed by some person. 

I want my readers to carefully go through the 
book of Job for themselves. It belongs to the first 
creation. It has five known characters and one 
supernumerary God, but no devil in it. Man was all 
it needed. 

But Job did not write the book, neither he, nor his 
friends, nor his enemies. It was written by other 
men. 

In the twenty-third verse of the nineteeeth chapter 
Job is represented as saying : 

" O that my words Avere now written ! O that 
they were printed in a book !" 

And the thirty-fifth verse of the thirty-first 
chapter : 

" Oh .... that mine adversary had written 
a book." 

Very few of the books which comprise the Bible 
were written by the persons whose names are given 
as the authors. 

So it will be very important for you to know 
whose essay you are reading ; where, when, and by 
whom and for what purpose it was written, and 
whether it has been garbled to suit the capricious 
whims of some person or persons. 

A very respectful friend to Truth and Humanity. 

JOHN ATWOOD. 



16 



INTRODUCTION. 



1 COMMENCED without a school education. I 
have arranged the following subjects to the best of 
my ability, but you will find it all there, and fully 
setting forth my theory, although somewhat jumbled 
together. 

This book gives a life-search of the author, with 
hundreds of references of ancient and middle ages 
and modern times (including many Bible citations) 
extending down to the present day, and from the sub- 
lime to the ridiculous ; giving the theory of the crea- 
tion as set forth in the Bible, by Hugh Miller, Charles 
Darwin, and by John Atwood. 

I have found the missing link in the chain of crea- 
tion, and shackled on the anchor of Truth and 
Hope. 

The problem is solved and the triangle is com- 
pleted. All right. 

By the rule of trigonometry, simple and compound, 
I am able to finish the creation up to the present 
period of time by three problems. Evolution, Revolu- 
tion, and Dissolution. 

The two positives will give the negative that has 

17 



been made known and fully demonstrated by m?tlie- 
matics and the four rules of navigation. 

But how to find the two negative parts have never 
been made known. 

This I shall do. 

And that will prove what Copernicus said when 
he was about to die : '' The world still moves." He 
was a wise man, and recanted and saved his life, or 
the good- men would have killed him, as they did 
Bruno. 

Do the wise men of to-day think they know all 
there is to be known ? 

Men will come after us and call us fools, and will 
not miss the mark when compared with themselves. 

I shall prove what the first death is, and tell who 
has had his part in the first resurrection ; and what 
the second death is, and demonstrate it; and also 
what the past was, what the present is, and what the 
future will be. 

Don't marvel, dear reader. I shall give you a poem 
from a play that was presented in Athens five hun- 
dred years before the Christian era. Also, a letter 
written by Theophilus to the Blessed Virgin Mary, 
and her answer. 

I shall refer to some very curious fish stories that 
came within my experience, and will vouch for their 
truthfulness ; and shall also explain how it is they 
discount the fish stories of old. 

Truth is stranger than fiction. 

I presume many of my readers are not aware that 
there is a species of fish which nurses its young from 
a bottle. 



18 



There is no animal below the human child that is 
made to draw its milk from a bottle except a fish. 

I shall give the name and classify the kind of fish, 
and explain how it is done — a wonder of creation. 

I shall give you some selections from the sayings 
of wise and good men, and some from other 
men, and you shall have the privilege of culling 
as you think proper. 

Go not in the way of bad men. 

Any man who teaches a theory that he cannot dem- 
onstrate and prove true to simple men and women is 
a knave, or bad man. 

If his silly-billy stuff injures any person, he ought 
to be punished. 

Let it be distinctly understood that the Bible has 
affixed to it two distinct creations. 

And whereas the Christian world has jumbled them 
together and made hodge-podge of the whole book, I 
shall separate them and give the proof as it has never 
before been given to man. 

A glance at the past is sufficient. 

Now look ahead for happiness to come — not back- 
wards; for 1 shall prove that all who have lived can- 
not live again with the same identity they once had. 

You are living now, so you need not fear the second 
death. 

One world at a time is sufficient. 

One life is all that belongs to you or me. 

Arm yourself and proceed. 

Dispute every word if you are able to bring the 
proof. 

The ownership of this earth is the question at issue. 

19 



Resolved, That man is the first and rightful owner 
of this planet, according to the account of the first 
creation as given in the first chapter of Genesis. 

I take the affirmative undeniably, and just creation 
where man has dominion and ownership of all below 
him. 

My opponent, Rabbi Heletiah, picks up a new crea- 
tion in the second chapter, by a new creator, whom 
he styles "Lord God," who makes man, the first of 
air created beings,' full grown, and purely immaculate, 
and calls his name Adam. 

I consider him the biggest still-born child ever im- 
posed on mankind. 

My opponent declares that the earth is the Lord's 
and the fulness thereof, but he shows no title. 

I dispute the premises. 

I declare that men while they are on this earth 
own it, occupy it, and have dominion over it, as God 
promised they should. 

Possession is nine points of law. 

My opponent, that arch-priest, will tell you that 
your soul is not your own. He will seem to bring 
proof from his record by quoting such passages as, 
'' Ye are not your own, but bought with a price." 

You must infer that his Lord is in the slave trade, 
buying up souls. 

But in perusing this work you will not believe 
what I say, but watch your colleague and question 
him concerning his own sayings. You will need no 
evidence of mine to convince you of facts unless you 
have wholly embraced idolatry. 

20 



The fool hath said: '' There is no God," but that is 
not true. 

The God I introduce I shall prove to you. 

The air is the only Omnipresent Invisible. 

The sun is the Omnipotent visible God. 

The father and son of immortal matter, self-exist- 
ant, co-equal, co-eval, and co-eternal — the same yes- 
terday and forever — our creator and sustainer. 

Man is the third person in the trinity, making the 
only omniscient God, and these three are one God. 

Man is the microcosm or personification of the 
true God. 

And here and now I shall prove what God is by 
known rules of logic, for what he is makes him a 
God. 

And that none know there is any God unless he 
knows what God is, for what he is makes him a God. 

I shall have no need to prove to my readers that 
the air is the only thing that can be everywhere, and 
form a new body there. And as it is with forms so 
it must be with identities; they come like the seasons, 
have their day and pass on, that other seasons may 
come. 

So with man's identity. 

Reader, man as matter is immortal, but men as indi- 
viduals, like you and me, come from dead, inert mat- 
ter, by the power of God. 

It is impossible that identities which have had a 
beginning can be eternal or immortal. There can be 
but one eternal God, and that is matter without per- 
sonal form and void of intelligence. 

21 



So no act of cruelty can be cliavged to God by 
ignorant men. 

I stall also prove to my readers what the first 
death is, and what the first resurrection from the 
dead is, and who they are that have their part in the 
first resurrection, on whom the second death can have 
no power. 

I shall prove to you that there is but one individ- 
ual life, and that their are two deaths. 

By the square of reason. 

Nowhere else nor by any other person is this so 
fully set forth and truly demonstrated. 

I will show you a mystery, or a trutli. 

We do not live when identity of form and will 
power are dead. 

In our sleep every night it is by our God of imag- 
ination being in tune for life, but where has the will 
power of man gone? Into nonentity for the time 
being; where the woodbine twineth. 

I shall refer you to your own Bible creation for 
evidence in addition to the scientific and demonstra- 
able philosophy, which is all-sufficient to convince any 
man who has no creed to hamper him. 

In succeeding chapters I shall endeavor to show 
my readers what God is in order that they may not 
have to round out seventy years as I did before they 
find out the true God. 

If you endeavor to find the true God by inquiring 
of theologians, I can recommend you to thirty-two 
different ones who represent every point of the com- 
pass. They will tell you that their course is right, 
and that all others are wrong. 

22 



The first will say : " Here ! Here ! Pay your fare, 
and I will ticket you through and check your bag- 
gage/' 

The second will say : "• The gospel is free. Our 
Christ is the only redeemer/' 

The third will tell you that none will be saved 
unless they believe in his Jesus. 

The fourth will tell you that all will be saved 
whether you believe or not.; that Christ bought you 
with His blood. 

This gives the best assurance of any of the 146 
different religious denominations or sects in the United 
States, says the Philadelphia Record. 

All of them have a different method of reaching 
heaven. 

What nonsense it is to have so many ways when 
there cannot be but one straight road to that place. 

My way is different from them all, and I don't ask 
you to believe, but read on and dispute ever}^ point 
I make. 

You have no need to dispute any of the thirty-two 
that are steering by one compass, — which is the same 
Bible, — because they dispute each other ; so that 
settles the question. 

None of them can be right, it must seem. 
» Is it possible those men are sane, or can there be 
so many different gods. 

Unless men made them so, we conclude that 
man made the gods, all but the one true God, and 
He don't write on paper, nor instruct men to do so. 

That is a voluntary power with men, and they 
have abused it. 



28 



CHAPTER I. 

I ENTERED my career in this life as a fisher boy 
at the age of eight years. At nine years I was 
cook of schooner Seaflower. At the age of ten years 
I was cook of schooner Porpoise. 

I had early Christian instruction, such as it was. 
My father and mother were pious, or they thought 
they were, and I thought so too, of course. 

I received no school education, living at a distance 
from town. My father taught me that to know God, 
and to know Him aright, was life eternal. 

I thought that was worth looking for. I com- 
menced my search for God. It was up hill and down 
vale the first twenty years. I thought I was wicked, 
although I never did anyihing that was bad. 

At the age of fifteen 1 dreamed that I died and 
went up to heaven. The door was opened, and I saw 
many that I had been acquainted with, and some of 
them I knew had not been very good while they 
were on the earth. But my sentence was : '' Depart, 
ye cursed, into everlasting punishment ; I know you 
not." I demurred, and claimed that there were 
some there not so good as I was ; but I was hurled 
towards that unmentionable place, which so fright- 
ened me that I awoke and rejoiced that it was only a 
dream. 



25 



• I shall never forget those horrible twenty years I 
lived without hope and without God in the world. 

But at the age of twenty I found there was a uni- 
versal God and a heaven, and a Saviour, who had 
died to save all mankind, and that He would do it. 

" Ye are not your own, but you were bought with 
a price," were His words, so I was told. 

Of course he would protect His property. Then I 
was Happy with a capital H. So I went on my way 
rejoicing. 

My father said he was just as sure there w^as a 
hell as that there was a heaven, but I did not think 
so then. I am satisfied he was rio-ht in regard 
to a local heaven and a local hell; but enough of this 
foolish doctrine. I pass it by, and let it go. 

And I go on my way rejoicing. I was happy, and 
continued so until I was seventy years old. But 1 
was not quite satisfied that I knew God aright, 
because to know^ God aright Avas to know what God 
was_ To know there was a God He must be made 
manifest to my senses. 

Behold, I had a vision, and I heard a voice. I 
listened and heard these words: "O ignorant man, 
that thou art, thou hast been looking for me these 
sixty years. O foolish man, if I must reveal myself 
to thee, I am the air you breathe; I am always with 
you ; I am in you, and you in me. Thou canst have 
no other omnipresent God but me. I watch over you 
in your sleep. I go out with you and come in with 
you. Let not vain babblers deceive you. I will 
explain myself to you. 

" Shall mortal man be more just than God? They 

26 



come and go like the seasons, the trees, and the stars. 
They are made of that same immortal matter; but the 
stars of today are not the stars that always were, 
although of the same immortal matter, but will pass 
away as nebulous matter, and form new stars in the 
universe. So there is always an infinite number of 
stars to man, but not the same ; nor are the men who 
live now the same men who lived before, but they are 
of the same immortal matter. So you see that I, your 
God, am without form and invisible, but I and my 
sun that you see are the creator of all forms. 

"Be still, and know that we are gods. 

" Visible and invisible, immortal matter, always 
the same, yesterday and today, the same immortal 
matter, without beginning or ending. Time with us 
is ever one eternal Now. 

" But I manifest myself in man's flesh, with an 
organized brain, that men may know what God is. " 

God's almighty power shows what He is. He can 
pass unobserved, or he can manifest his power. Our 
God and His Christ are without malice aforethought, 
but the creator and mover of all worlds and beings. 

Here I desire to offer a short prayer to our God 
that he will assist me and enable me to finish this 
great work of revealing Him to men, in as few words 
as it can be done, for we are not commended for 
much speaking or reviling. 

The truth is simple, and will prevail in the 
twentieth century. 

" O Thou whom no eye can see, nor mind compre- 
hend ; thou immutable, omnipresent essence of life, the 
creator and mover of all worlds and beings, we adore, 

27 



bless and thank thee for the gift of thy dear sun, our 
saviour, the Logos of to-day, in whose light and 
warmth we ever live and move and have our being. 
Thou art the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, our 
God and His Christ. Amen. " 

I am no sectarian. I make no war on any sect or 
creed. I respect all men if they are good. I have 
friends in most all of the prevailing denominations, 
and they all look alike to me. They are men and 
brothers, and they treat me as such. I accord to 
every man the right to his own belief if he is honest 
in it. 

My friends are good men and true, and I wish them 
a long and happy life, and there I leave them with 
their God. 

Whatever they have sown they shall reap. I 
have lived a long and useful life, and never have 
injured any one intentionally who did not deserve it 
badly, and but very few at that, only to punish them 
for their bad deeds to me. 

And now all of my enemies are dead. I don't know 
that I have one enemy in the world. If there be one 
it is because he is» not willing for me to enjoy my own 
opinion and state what I honestly believe or know, 
the same as he claims for himself. Be merciful to 
man and render to others the same as you would 
wish them to render to you. 

I have no enmity toward any man. I only make 
war with principles that I consider wrong and injuri- 
ous to the human family, and give in return what 
I consider to be true and beneficial. In life sucli has 
been my experience. In life I have no axe to grind, 

28 






nor any one to fear in this life ; and all I have to say 
to my readers in this chapter is to be good, and learn 
for yourselves, as I have done. 

My name is recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life 
by the recording angel as one who loves his fellow- 
man ; and the rewarding angel has placed it with the 
blessed as one who has had and is having his part in 
the first resurrection. It is happiness to me to know 
that it will be rest and peace with me when I go. I 
bid you all good-by, as I shall probably soon leave 
you. Farewell, dear friends. 



29 



CHAPTER II. 

PSYCHOLOGY is the science that teaches wis- 
dom. It never drives a person insane, and he 
that possesses it will never die a fool. 

He may die a knave if he makes a wrong use of it, 
as some do. 

It is the hidden mystery. But iew know it. I 
have been asked many times to teach it, and offered 
money double the amount I paid. But I did not con- 
sider that the people were ready for it. It lias too 
much power to be put into the hands of many, even 
now. St. Paul, you know, after he was educated 
Avas not considered worthy to receive that mystery 
which was handed down through the Leviticus priest- 
hood. None were permitted to receive it except they 
were of the Tribe of Levi, and had studied for the 
ministiy. 

In receiving it I pledged my most sacred honor as 
a man that I would not teach it for a less sum than I 
paid for it. And I pledged to myself that I would 
not teach it for money. 

You will bear in mind that this art, which comes by 
the laying on of hands, came fi'om Egypt, and we 
have two branches of it that have been handed down 
to the present period a secret. 

30 



Let it be distinctly and always borne in mind that 
every iota of the Christian religion is of Egyptian 
origin. Peter, the foundation of the Catholic church, 
was an Egyptian Jew by the name of Simon the son 
of Simon, a magician, at Alexandria. Simon was a 
fisherman on the river Niger, as I have stated in 
another chapter. 

Jesus was educated at Alexandria, and at that 
great school received the secret that gave him such 
great power. 

Josephus called him the Egyptian false prophet 
who came to Capernaum and collected some thou.- 
sands of fishermen, mariners and common laborers. 
He claimed He had superhuman power, and led His 
army up on the Mount of Olives to be instructed of 
God, the same as Moses claimed. 

Then he attacked the Romans, was defeated, and 
fled. 

He taught all His disciples, but some of them were 
J lot worthy. 

Take your Bible and study Peter's character. 

The wise Catholic priests have forbidden the com- 
mon class to use the art, but you occasionally read of 
their practicing it. 

Paul calls it the Holy Ghost by the laying on of 
hands. He received it through the Peter clan. He 
was so highly educated and had such confidence in 
his abilities that he entered into an argument on the 
merits of this matter with Peter, avIio was compara- 
tively uncultured. 

But with all of Paul's great learning Peter was 
more than his equal in the debate which ensued. 

31 



They were hale fellows well met as far as character 
and natural abilities were concerned. 

Read your Bible as a man ought to read it, and see 
if I have not given Paul his true character. In 
another chapter I have given only a few of his evil 
deeds. 

The Jewish rabbis have this secret, but they are 
superstitious, although they are progressing, which is 
more than I can say of our religion. It does not 
admit of any progression by man, and the greatest 
wonder is that man is as good as he is, after being 
taught that false Pagan or Indian doctrine of a Great 
Spirit in the form of a man that fills the whole earth 
and is a person, but is not man. 

Such has caused man to transmit to his offspring 
for thousands of years that falsehood. We know 
that like begets like, and that chilch-en resemble their 
parents very much. And how can it be otherwise ? 

I here give you a demonstration of facts by the 
science that I call Psychometry, science of mind ; 
Biology, the means whereby the unknown Psychol- 
ogy is found. 

This is my definition of the words. 

Man is a microcosm, representing all things below 
him, with a double brain, where the seat of life is lo- 
cated. The cerebellum, or back brain, is the seat of 
life ; and the cerebrum, or the front brain, is the gen- 
erator of all thought. The knowledge, the identity of 
man is of but short duration, and as Paul refers to 
it after the manner of men when he says " I die 
daily," I suppose he called the whole twenty-four 
hours a day ; and he went to sleep every day and for- 

32 



got himself, and was dead as far as the senses were 
concerned, and if he had not awakened he would 
have been eternally dead. 

This faculty was given us to instruct us in our 
life that there would be an eternal sleep, at last when 
the cerebellum, or back brain, ceases to act in our 
sleep, or unconscious state. You know that the cere- 
brum is controlled as regards life wholly by the cere- 
bellum, or back brain, which runs the machine entire- 
ly when we are unconscious; but when it is worn out 
or ceases to act we don't have to die — we are already 
dead. 

It is a mistake to think that we were born to die — 
we were born to live. That is the object of life. 
Don't forget it. 



33 



CHAPTER III. 

I NOW desire to make a note by way of explana- 
tion regarding the two characters I met in my 
pilgrimage. 

The first was a very good and wise god, who made 
everything in a scientific and systematic manner. 

He was the god of the Chaldeans. 

The history of the creation was given some thou- 
sand years before the Israelites' Lord God commenced 
the creation, beginning with the second chapter of 
Genesis and ending with the third chapter. 




I 



THE FATHER, SON 
In getting wisdom get understanding, for without 
this you are as sounding brass or as tinkling cymbal. 



34 



i 



But my readers are supposed to be wise men, and 
do not need all this caution. 

As this book is to be dedicated to wise men, I 
want you to start fair and run fair. I recommend 
you to read the first two chapters in your Bible so 
that you will be prepared to understand the mys- 
teries that I shall point out to you verbatim, with a 
single reference to Job and the writer of the said 
book, which was written long before Israelite Adam 
was made of dust. 

All that was original of the dialogue, or psalm, 
written in the book of Job was taken from the Chal- 
dean account by Hellekap, the learned Jewish rabbi, 
during the seventy years' captivity of the Jews in 
Babylon, and committed to memory by that design- 
ing priest. 

After the exit from Babylon he wrote the book 
called Job, and that dialogue, prefixing two chapters 
and adding one chapter to make it Israelitish and 
foolish. 

My object is to teach my pupils something that 
they can't forget, whether it is foolish or otherwise. 
My experience has been long in reading the written 
Bible, as well as the old open book of Reason, the 
bible of God. 

Every man who has extracted a new truth, or 
brought to light an old truth, and has demonstrated it 
to mankind, has written a sentence with the finger 
of the mind in that book. But there are plenty of 
blank leaves which cannot be wholly written over 
while man inhabits this planet. He is ever learning, 

35 



and never able to come fully into the knowledge of 
the full truth. 

In the first creation we have not a very extensive 
chart of that great province of Chaldea. We can 
give you the number of its cities and towns, which 
was ten, with the largest city that the world ever 
knew, that great and mighty city, Babylon, the 
largest city and comprised of the most refined people 
in the world; the others being city of Uz, city of 
Buz, city or town of Shu, of Naam, of Tern and 
Nod, Tema, Sheba, and Ophir. 

These are the names of all the cities and towns 
given in the Bible. Daniel in his dreams wanders 
too much to be reliable. 

The book of Job belongs to the people of the first 
creation. There are five characters as men and one 
supernumerary called god. It is a dialogue or par- 
able, similar to that of the rich man and Lazarus, 
recorded in the New Testament, only that Job was 
the rich man and the devil smote him with sores ; and 
Lazarus was the poor man, and God smote him with 
sores because he disobeyed the laws of his nature* 
But when he died God sent his angels and they took 
him and put him in Abraham's bosom, while the rich 
man went tumbling down to hell. 

So it is not a man's good moral character that 
carries him to heaven, as Dives was better than 
Abraham and Lazarus according to Bible doctrine. 

Let it be distinctly forever and eternally borne in 
mind that the world and all things in it were as 
recorded and completed in the first chapter of Genesis, 
and that the earth and everything thereon was given 

36 



to man; not only once stated, but repeated and 
clinched. 

Therefore the ownership of the earth is man's, which 
was given to him by the creator. I consider it an 
offence against God to contend that God owns all the 
earth when He has freely given us all things, and 
commanded His first people to wi'ite it down in a 
book, and here I give it to you. 

I don't want to say what I think of those Jews 
who so falsified the words of the gods who formed the 
heavens, the earth and all the things thereon, and has 
so declared it by his presence. 

Read the chapter. Don't be afraid to understand 
it. It will not hurt you to know the truth, though 
you may think it will. 

I shall give you in another chapter some state- 
ments made by Daniel. In his dreamy state he is vis- 
ionary. He speaks of the Kings of Babylon, of 
beasts, of rams' horns, great horns and little horns. 
But Daniel belonged to the second creation. 

Read the first chapter of Genesis. That is my 
good God, every time, and the only true and living 
God there is to-day. He is your God, also. 

So don't cry, as did Mary Magdalene at the sepul- 
chre, '' They have taken away my Lord, and I know 
not where they have laid Him." 

Be patient. The true God is here, and He is ever 
mindful of your needs. This God gives you breath, 
while your machine is in order to receive it. And 
His son gives you light, warmth and life. Without 
that blessed life-giving and life-sustaining influence 

37 



we could not live. It is our Father and His son wlio 
give us individual life. 

Read the first chapter of Genesis, which follows, 
carefully, and you will find that the world and all 
created beings were made and pronounced good. And 
why should there be another creation necessary? I 
want you to read the second and third chapters, and 
note the contradictions of the account of the first crea- 
tion, and you will notice that there were two persons 
created man — male and female. This God, or these 
gods, could not be an individual and be in every- 
thing and be somehere else at the same time. This is 
self-evident. 

There is one point gained. 

The sun is the centre force from which all light, 
heat, and living and moving power comes. This is 
self-evident. 

This is another point gained. 

That this God and his Christ are self-existent and 
eternal matter, no one can successfully deny. Should 
any one object I shall meet him with demonstrative 
philosophy. 

That the combined matter of our earth consists of 
solids and liquids from which man was formed no 
sane man will attempt to deny. This matter is im- 
mortal and indestructible from which forms are made 
— man, the image and form of God, and the handi- 
work of the only God, personified and made manifest 
in the flesh through the two positives — by Evolution 
of inherent force in matter the form comes and is a 
person ; by Revolution it moves and has an individ- 
ual being, and is a part of the great God. Arid as it 

38 



had a beginning so it must have an ending, therefore 
by Dissolution it passes away in gases to some seclud- 
ed spot in the universe. 

Now follows the first chapter of Genesis : 

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and 
the earth. 

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and 
darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the 
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 

3 And God said. Let there be light: and there was 
light. 

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and 
God divided the light from the darkness. 

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness 
he called Night. And the evening and the morning 
were the first day. 

6 And God said. Let there be a firmament in the 
midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from 
the waters. 

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the 
waters which were under the firmament from the 
waters which were above the firmament: and it was 
so. 

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And 
the evening and the morning were the second day. 

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven 
be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry 
land appear: and it was so. 

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the 
gathering together of the waters called he Seas: And 
God saw that it was good. 

39 



11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, 
the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding 
fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the 
earth: and it was so. 

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb 
yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding 
fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and 
God saw that it was good. 

13 And the evening and the morning were the 
third day. 

14 And God said. Let there be lights in the firm- 
ament of the heaven, to divide the day from the 
night ; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and 
for days, and years : 

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of 
the heaven, to give light upon the earth : and it was 
so. 

16 And God made two great lights; the greater 
light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the 
night: he made the stars also. 

17 And God set them in the firmament of the 
heaven, to give light upon the earth, 

18 And to rule over the day and over the night 
and to divide the light from the darkness: and God 
saw that it was good. 

19 And the evening and the morning were the 
fourth day. 

20 And God said. Let the waters bring forth 
abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and 
fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firm- 
ament of heaven. 

21 And God created great whales, and every living 

40 



creature that movetli, which the waters brought forth 
abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl 
after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 

22 And God blessed them, saying. Be friutful, and 
multiply, and fill the waters in the seas ; and let fowl 
multiply in the earth. 

23 And the evening and the morning were the 
fifth day. 

24 And God said. Let the earth bring forth the 
living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping 
thing, and beast of tlie earth after his kind: and 
it was so. 

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his 
kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that 
creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw 
that it was good. 

26 And God said. Let us make man in our image, 
after our likeness ; and let them have dominion over 
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and 
over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every 
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 

27 So God created man in his own image, in the 
image of God created he him; male and female 
created he them. 

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, 
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and 
subdue it ; and have dominion over the fish of the 
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every liv- 
ing thing that moveth upon the earth. 

29 And God said. Behold I have given you every 
herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the 
earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a 

41 



C 



tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 

30 And to every beast of tlie earth, and to every 
fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon 
the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every 
green herb for meat : and it was so. 

31 And God saw every thing that was made, and, 
behold, it was very good. And the evening and the 
morning were the sixth day. 



42 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE whole truth of Evolution, Revolution and 
Dissolution at one grasp and deposited in a 
nutshell. 

First, matter is immortal in whatever form it may 
be. 

The sun is the cause of all life or motion, and is 
the living proof of visible matter without knowl- 
edge in itself. 

The air is the invisible omnipresent matter with- 
out intelligence. 

Those two forces by the power of Evolution are 
forming and moving all worlds and beings. 

Reader, since your Bible was written it has been 
discovered that our earth is a true child and revolves 
around its mother — the center sun. This parent has 
a watchful care over her offspring, our earth, by the 
aid of our Father, who walks our earth without being 
seen by us ; but in Him we live and move and have 
our being, and without His aid in providing for our 
wants our mother could not support her children and 
keep them alive. 

Those I have named are our great-great-grand-pa- 
rents. 

I state to you in this chapter facts that are self-evi- 

43 



dent. Therefore they need no demonstrative evidence 
of mine to prove them. 

You must be aware that our earth has a vacuum on 
its surface which is the cause of all motion. 

As the burning sun strikes on our meridian and 
causes a powerful non-equilibrium between its heat 
,and the cold forces of the poles, so the wind rushes 
as though it had a mind to freeze all the water to the 
Gulf stream, that is, in the winter, when our mother 
is not so near us. 

But it becomes spent and then its death is potent. 

And then the south wind springs up, with warm 
rain, and rushes north, with seeming determination 
to melt all the ice clear to the north pole, but it 
becomes equalized before it gets there. 

All these wonderful performances are certainly 
going on without any individual mind to conduct 
them. 

I have fully proved in other chapters that there can- 
not be a personal omnipresent God outside of man, — 
and that man male and female — was evolved from 
inert matter, so far as intelligence and dead or- 
ganism are concerned. 

Our first parent was not made of the masculine 
gender alone, out of dust, without moisture, and full 
grown, according to Hugh Miller's theory, as I have 
said in other parts of this book. 

Nor was he made from a monkey, whether full 
grown or otherwise, as Darwin has asserted. 

But it was just as easy for the creative power called 
God or gods to create man in his ignorant and 

44 



barbaric state as it was to create the monkey, baboon, 
or any other animal. 

The objection that I have to the Hugh Miller 
theory is that God, or Lord God, could not make 
man out of dust without liquid, and that it was 
square-handed to make a full-grown fool without hav- 
ing him grow up like all other animals. 

The only objection to the Darwinian theory is that 
God, or gods, could not make men from monkeys and 
have the monkeys left as monkeys. It must destroy 
the monkeys as a race to make them into men. Then 
there could be no monkeys. 

It was just as easy for the gods to make men after 
there own or a better image as it was to make them 
after the image of any other animal. 

When our mother Earth was of proper age she pro- 
duced man — male and female — and left off bearing, 
and delegated the right of production to her children, 
and they have carried on that work from generation 
to generation, even until now. 

I ask the learned theologian who pretends to know 
all about God why He left off the creation when He 
had made the monkey, or when he had made Adam, 
full grown, and forbid him to know anything. 

My friends, any of them who are ministers, can 
answer with safety, for they cannot answer more 
foolishly than thousands of others have done. 

Why should God stop creating man — male and fe- 
male — in their infancy, as other animals are and were 
created and commanded them to multiply and replen- 
ish the earth, and pronounce everything He had made 
good ; and He created no Satan in his first creation. 

45 



And the gods created man in there own image, 
that is in the best image of all the animals which had 
been made — as it is set forth in the first chapter of 
Genesis, which gives the history of the whole crea- 
tion of everything, and which was pronounced good. 

Now put your thinkers at work and don't be befooled 
by me or any other person, for all the writing about 
God and the gods has been done by man, for God or 
the gods never wrote a word on paper since the for- 
mation of our earth. 

It is wonderfully strange that men will be led away 
by designing priests, whose only aim is to keep 
people in ignorance of nature and nature's laws, when 
it is so plain that the universe is governed by law. 

But as man is so selfish, and because he has been 
taught to believe what is erroneous, and so much 
money has been spent on him to fit him to be able to 
deceive the unlearned, and by so doing he is enabled 
to control the minds of many and make them believe 
that he has been inspired by an invisible God to 
write that imaginary God's will in the face of nature's 
unchangeable laws. 

The fact is that the theologian has been deceived and 
has paid his money for it, and he means to get it back 
and a good living besides by dealing damnation 
around the land on those he deems his God's foes. 

All doctrines are proved to be wrong by their con- 
tradictions of each other — all taken from one book 
and claimed by them all to be the word of God. 

How any sane man in this age of intelligence can 
for one moment believe that any one of the many doc- 
trines is right is a wonder to me. 

46 



And I find but few men within the age of reason, 
who are between 21 and 70 years of age, who really be- 
lieve in experimental religion. 

The time or period is fast approaching when men 
will be honest with themselves and come out of this 
visionary lethargy, so contradictory to all real truth. 

This is rather hard for me to write because I have 
some friends who are ministers, and very excellent 
men they are as men. I am very sorry for them, as 
their trade compels them to say and do what they 
would not otherwise do; but it is all in the trade. 

There are many truthful lawyers and honorable 
men outside of their profession, but duty demands of 
them that they make a strong effort to prove the crim- 
inal innocent, when they know he is guilty in their 
own minds. Some lawyers will not take the defence 
in a criminal case. (They have a conscience.) 

My trade by which I got a living was a very decep- 
tive one. I was a fisherman, and all fish are 
taken by deception or force, or by both combined. I 
could do it with a good will, and was called an ex- 
pert at it. 

But I never became a fisher of men, and never 
used my skill that way. I never wanted to catch 
men with guile as some other fishermen have done, 
although I had received and paid for my tuition of 
that monster art of deception called Electro-Psychol- 

It is the two-edged sword of knowledge ; it enables 
one to do good or bad, as his organization inclines 
him to do. 

I am glad that I was born right, and do not need 

47 



to be born again ; and never expect to be, as one life 
is sufficient for one person, and as I do not agree 
with Hugh Miller or Darwin, and as they do not 
agree with each other, you will readily see that one 
of them must be wrong. 

Well, they are both negative to me. I am the 
positive, and declare that they have not finished their 
work. So it is understood Charles Darwin did well 
as far as he went, but he left one link of the chain 
out, and that is the most important one, and is larger 
than any other. It is the shackle that connects the 
chain to the Anchor of Hope and Truth. 

When he had finished all the links I do not see 
why he did not make the connecting shackle, instead 
of leaving that for me to do. 

Well, I can do it. 

Charles Darwin finished his chain when his God 
had made the monkey, gorilla, ourang outang, and 
baboon. There he was stuck. 

I pick up his chain. It was well made thus far, 
but it has no shackle. It is just as easy for my God 
to make the shackle as it was to make the chain, if 
he took a little more stock, and of that he had plenty. 

Reader, you have no right to say that God could 
not make man when He said or they said He did ; 
and we see him around as large as life, and plenty of 
little fellows who will grow into men. 

Now the chain is complete, and I have shackled it to 
the Anchor of Life and Immortality. 

The chain is strong, the anchor is sure and stead- 
fast within the vale of our God's heritage, and we 
have become the omniscient God personified. 

48 



We know that matter is immortal, and all forms 
come and go, for it is impossible to be otherwise. 

As I often say to my readers, there are three 
things to be considered, and I work by the rule of 
three, direct and compound, when the problem re- 
quires it. 

The simple mathematical rule of the two positives 
of the square gives the negative every time, and in 
the compound rules of navigation the course and dis- 
tance run give the latitude and longitude. 

This was discovered long ago. 

The trigonometry taught in your colleges has never 
gone beyond that ; but I am going to show you and 
demonstrate what never before has been given to man 
to know, — or man has never declared it to my knowl- 
edge, viz., that by one positive of the square the two 
negatives are known. I shall give it in a subsequent 
chapter. 

I hope my friends, the learned theologians, will 
not throw doAvn this book with contempt because it 
was written by an ignorant fisherman who cannot 
spell correctly, nor write grammatically. 

I want to remind them here again that the founda- 
tion of their religion — of Avhich they boast so much — 
was promulgated by the ignorant fishermen of Galilee, 
who could not write at all, and that others wrote their 
stories as they were related to them. 

Peter, James and John were the leaders of your 
gospel and the founders of your religion. 

Matthew was a tide waiter and collected taxes from 
the fishermen, and might have written his book, as he 
had a little learning; but the three fishermen told 

49 



tlieir stories and other men wrote them. 

John made his mark (X), and one book was called 
Mark. 

Peter told his story, and alluded to Jesus; and they 
called the book Luke. 

Theophilus wrote the gospel according to his idea 
of John, and called it the Gospel according to St. 
John. That surely means that John did not write it. 

It was written by some other person long after 
John the fisherman was dead. 

This John who could not write. 

Your book says that Peter and John were ignorant 
men. 

But he was the beloved disciple, and Jesus could 
trust him. He would not be as liable to violate the 
law as the others would. So he put his mother in his 
charge, and he was to be her son in his stead, and she 
to be his mother; and he told him that he should 
tarry on the earth till he came. 

So says your book. I leave you to settle that part 
of the question, as I am dealing with your witnesses 
without cross-examination. 

I asked a minister once at a Sunday school who wrote 
St. John's gospel when the question or lesson em- 
braced the authenticity of the four gospels. I told 
him that it could not be John the Baptist, although 
he figured largely in the first four chapters, always as 
the second or third person ; and it was not John the 
Revelator, the fisherman, son of Zebedee and Salome, 
of Capernaum. He agreed with me. 

Then I asked him what John it was. As I was in 
search of knowledge I would be pleased to have him 

50 



inform me, not knowing that there were any other 
Johns mentioned in the New Testament. He said he 
would tell me, but he has never done so. 

About two years afterward I wrote to him asking 
if he would redeem the promise he made me in the 
Sunday school at Provincetown. 

He did not answer for the best of reasons, viz., he 
could not. 

I am certain he received my letter, as he resided in 
the same city (Maiden), and was the Universalist 
preacher there at the time. Since then he has slid 
back to the first John's gospel. Baptism. This is 
going backwards, as well as looking backwards. 

I suppose you have read Bellamy's book, " Looking 
Backward," for it is fair to suppose that everybody 
has read it, as fiction and dreams have reigned trium- 
phant since the days of John the Baptist even until 
now. The gentleman's name is Babbitt, with the 
prefix " Rev." 

I hope my sticking him on the Johns was not the 
cause of his backward movement, for surely I meant 
no harm in giving the true author of the book 
ascribed to John, nor in asking him what John it 
was. I listened to him several times. He was a very 
powerful speaker, with a tremendous voice. 

But he run "shold," as we fishermen would say. 

As I have mentioned Jesus and John the Baptist, 
I will present two letters written by your friends, 
long ago, and it is asserted that they are genuine, 
written by the persons whose signatures are attached 
to them. Of course, dear reader, your friends could 
not lie. 



51 



I have copies of the letters, said to be true by mill- 
ions of learned men. I give you test copies of the 
originals. I find the first dated Paris, A. D. 1495, 
written by your gospel vendors, and of couse it must 
be true to all who believe in Hugh Miller's "Foot- 
prints of the Creator." The letters bear witness of 
being written in true ancient style, and are as here 
presented, written in the first century : 

"The Epistle of the Blessed Ignatius to the Holy 
Virgin Mary, mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

"To the Christ bearing Maria, her own Ignatius 
sendeth his compliments. 

"You ought to comfort and console me who am a 
new convert and a disciple of your friend John, for I 
have learned things wonderful to be told concerning 
your Jesus, and am astonished at the healing; but I 
desire from my very soul to be certified immediately 
by yourself, who was always familiar and conjoined 
with him and privy to his secrets, considering the 
things I have heard. 

"I have written to you other epistles also, and 
have asked concerning the same things. 

" Farewell, and let the new converts who are with 
me be comforted by thee, and from thee, and in thee. 

"Amen." 

The Blessed Virgin's answer: 

" To Ignatius, the beloved fellow-disciple, the hum- 
ble handmaid of Christ Jesus sendeth her compli- 
ments. 

"The things which you have heard and learned 
from John concerning Jesus are true. Believe them ; 
pleave to them ; hold fast the vow you have made to 

52 



ikL 



Cliristianity which you have embraced, and conform 
your life and manners to that vow ; and I and John 
will come together and visit you. 

"Stand firm in the faith; act manfully; nor let 
the sharp severity of persecution move you ; but may 
your soul fare well and rejoice in God, your Saviour. 

"Aman." 



53 



CHAPTER V, 



THIS chapter will treat of the immortality of the 
soul triumphant, or the difference between the 
immortal and mortal defined. 

The immortal is without beginning of days or the 
ending of years. 

The immortal God is all-powerful and ever present, 
self-existent and eternal, the same yesterday, to-day 
and forever, without variableness, or the shadow of 
malice or anger. 

But the mortal god, man, is full of malice and 
anger. At times he is capable of doing good or bad, 
in accordance with his organization and subsequent 
development. 

It has been and is noAV taught that there is only 
one God, consisting of three parts, a triune god — om- 
nipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. This is the 
Christian's God. 

And now I shall endeavor to define the parts that 
go to make up the great God, our creator. 

And I will say to my friends and readers that 
whatever their religious views may be as regards the 
future, it is all right with them so long as they do 
unto others what they would that others should do 
linto them when in like circumstances. 

54 



The more exalted views you have of your God and 
his heaven of rest or praise the more pleasant your 
dreams will be and the greater your happiness in this 
life in anticipation of another. You will never be 
disappointed. 

All who believe in an angry God and think they 
are wicked and deserve to be burned in that visionary 
lake of fire and brimstone will receive their reward 
in bad dreams, and be like the troubled sea, continu- 
ally casting up mud and mire in their minds. 

I will make a few quotations from the Bible of say- 
ings alleged to have been made by the wisest and best 
writers of that book — not that it is necessary, but it 
may better satisfy some of my readers who think all 
knowledge must come from (my theory is self-evi- 
dent) the Bible. 

Solomon says the righteous and the wicked are 
alike in death. 

The king and the beggar lie down together. 

There is no device in the grave. 

Man dieth and goeth to his long home (that is, 
from whence he came). 

The mourners go about the streets. 

When dead men go about the streets and the 
mourners stay at home, then the order of nature will 
be changed. 

Again, who knoweth that the spirit of man goeth 
upward and the spirit of the beast goeth downwards? 

I could give hundreds of similar quotations, but it 
is not necessary. 

Men know more to-day than Solomon did. 

If they do not, then in what have they progressed? 

55 



We once existed and were witKoiit individual form, 
and devoid of intelligence, but a part of the immortal 
God. 

We now exist in an organized form, with an intel- 
ligent brain, and become the omniscient God, or 
microcosm, and are still a part of the great whole. 

Pope, in his "Essay on Man," says "all are but 
parts of one stupendous whole, whose body nature is, 
and God the soul" (that is the whole subject). 

As I have described the immortal soul as eternally 
existing there must be an opposite soul that does not 
exist always, and that is mortal, and came into being 
with an organized form and a brain possessing a 
mind, or it could not have been known that anything 
ever existed. That mortal soul came from that un- 
organized matter which we call death. 

Hence it arose from the dead, as we term death, 
and that must be the first resurrection, and we have 
the first individual life that preceded the second 
death. If there had not been an organized body pos- 
sessing life there could not have been any second 
death. That is certain. 

So there can be but one intelligent life for each in- 
dividual, as everything that has a beginning must 
have an end, as I have before stated. 

Our organization had a beginning ; so it cannot be 
immortal. It is the matter that is immortal and ever 
changing from one thing to another, but yet the same 
immortal matter. 

Every sane man must know that as the identity of 

• himself came to him not long ago, so it must end in 

time, as it is impossible that there should be an in- 

56 



crease in anytliing without a corresponding decrease 
to balance it ; and if an intelligent spirit occupies 
any space then space would have been filled before 
our day, and we should have been blocked out. 

As we are here, and living monuments from the 
first death, we are also sure that we shall pass into 
the second death, which can have no power to hurt or 
mar our feelings. 

It is the struggle for life that causes pain, not 
death ; that is the release from all pain. 

We were not ushered into this world to die, as is 
often said. We were born to live, the machinery 
being in order, and to live as long as we can; and 
when we cannot live any longer we are already dead 
and at rest. 

Eternal rest ; blessed thought. 

I consider life worth the living. This life of mine 
has been a great blessing to me, and not once have I 
regretted it. 

It has been a happy life to me in my waking mo- 
ments, and in my sleep, that temporary death, I have 
obtained that necessary rest that my identity required 
to keep it in repose for more useful work. It is the 
fittest that survives, all accidents excepted. 

We are therefore assured that when this lifehood 
ends we shall all go to make up that lifehood of God, 
of immortal matter, where there is no pain (which 
for the want of knowledge we now call death). 



57 



CHAPTER VI. 



TIME is only one eternal now. By this problem 
I demonstrate what never has before been made 
known, viz., that one known positive fact will give 
two negatives in the rule of trigonometry. 

Now is positive time. 

Past is negative — not in existence. 

It also proves that there is a future that is a nega- 
tive now, but will have an existence when it arrives 
and becomes a period of time. 

All things come, and go; so with periods. They 
last while they exist, and no longer. 

These things are facts, for I deal in facts only. 

This problem applies to man's form as well as to 
other things. 

It also applies to his identity as well. Every indi- 
vidual identity had a beginning, and will have an 
ending, all priestly doctrines or religion to the contrary 
notwithstanding, for what had a beginning must of 
necessity have an ending. I desire to impress this 
on your minds. 

Our knowledge of ourselves is not immortal, but 
had a slow beginning in development a few years ago, 

58 



.L-- 



and it will have an end in death when this machine 
is worn out. There our individual knowledge ends. 

Matter is immortal. 

Matter is eternal. 

Matter is, was, and always will be the same. 

Time and matter are eternal. 

Matter is the god that always was and always will 
be ; the same, to-day, yesterday, and forever. 

It is impossible that there could have been a begin- 
ning without an end. 

There cannot be an egress without there having 
been an ingress. Think of that. 

All the priests, with their gods and devils, cannot 
make it otherwise. 

Let any of the theologians prove there is a personal 
god outside of man who is omnipresent and it would 
take no prophet to foretell out fate. 

A personal god who fills all space would not admit 
of another person. So the believers in a personal 
god are dumbfounded. 

It is in perfect harmony with all nature that God 
is personified in man; that he is a microcosm, or rep- 
resentative God in man. 

This earth is governed by law inherent in matter. 
I repeat this saying. 

All bibles and ancient priests who lived and wrote 
books when men did not know that the earth was 
round, but thought it was flat, like a pancake, and 
wrote that the sun got up in the morning and laid 
down at night — such men who advocate this Bible 
theory, like Hugh Miller, are of no consequence to-day. 

The problem of life and death is solved. 

59 



There is one personal life for every individual who 
has an identity, and no more. 

Every person now living proves his existence. 
That is positive, and that proves that he arose from 
the dead, which to him now is negative; and as we 
shall die and pass into dead matter, from which we 
came, that proves the second^negative, which occupies 
a position opposite to our present life. 

So here and now I give the triune fact of Death, 
Life, and Death. There are two deaths ; the first 
was inert matter whice sprung into our life, and was 
the first resurrection from the dead. 

And there is the second death to be, which can 
have no power on our present life. 

The said death is negative now, and is proven by 
the one single positive. Life. 

Let the forty-five million of sectarians, or their 
representatives at Washington, prove one point of 
this triangle false, or even all of the one hundred and 
forty-five different sects do it, if they are able. Let 
them bring evidences that stand on their feet, and 
I will knock them asunder. 

Truth is powerful, and it will prevail. 

The fishermen of Galilee put out the eyes of wise 
theologians eighteen hundred years ago, and a fisher- 
man of Cape Cod can do it now. 

They tell you in the Bible that Jesus said that as 
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so shall 
the Son of Man be lifted up. (That is a fact.) 

But how did Moses lift up the brazen serpent? 

Now this is all the knowledge you have concerning 
it. 



60 



I know how he did it, but I shall not give it away 
here, but if any one wants to know, let him come to 
me and I will show him how it was done. So be it ; 
so be it. 

There were some miracles said to be performed by 
those fishermen apostles, but they were not miracles. 

The principal apostles were fishermen. They told 
fish stories that probably were true. Peter, the chief, 
caught a fish with coined money in its mouth. 

I don't dispute that. I have caught hundreds of 
fish with coined silver money in their mouths, both 
Spanish and American coin. 

Peter caught only one ; but then Peter's experience 
in the fishing business was small compared with what 
I have had during seventy years of my life. 

He did not live half so long, and part of that time 
he was fishing for men. 

The preachers professing to advocate the doctrine 
taught by Peter are better clad and wear shoes, 
whereas Peter went barefooted. They know more in 
one direction than he did, and less in another. He 
could not convince some of the people then without 
showing his Satanic art, as Moses had done before 
him. 

But the apostolic doctrine now in vogue proves in 
one point to be true. 

When Jesus was asked by His followers how men 
should know His true followers in after times. He 
replied : 

" You will not believe me without I show you a 
miracle. 

"But they will be strong-minded men. They can 

61 



take up serpents; they can drink the deadly poison, 
and do all the works that I do ; yea, and more, they 
do it." 

Because those who do do what Jesus did make their 
followers believe all the stories told of Him in the 
Bible, without any miracle, or even without any 
proof, except that magnetic or psychological power 
that the fishermen of Galilee possessed, by which bad 
men can do much evil to others, even to the taking 
of life, as has been done, which I have referred to in 
other parts of this work. 

Good men can do wonders by the same art, as I have 
done, many times in a manner that astonished me. 

I learned this art from a very highly educated 
teacher of the gospel of Jesus, before whom no 
preacher in this country could stand in argument. 
That was fifty years ago. I paid for my information, 
and it was worth all I gave for it, and a hundred 
times more, in my business, which required great 
skill in finding things that had been lost, which I did 
every time without employing a detective. 

I was my own detective, my own lawyer, my own 
preacher, by the aid of this science, which is won- 
derful. 

I have been requested to teach it, and have been 
offered very much more than I paid, but I refused to 
teach it for the reason that I did not think the people 
had arrived at the standard of morality and goodness 
which was necessary to make them worthy to receive 
it. This I have mentioned before. 

I shall have occasion to refer to Saul and show you 
what effect it had on him. 



62 



As you know, lie was taught in all the learning of 
the JeAvs at the feet of Gamaliel, a Jewish priest of 
great education. But when he was of age to receive 
the certificate given to the priests by Aaron, the 
Levite (Paul was also a Levite) he was thought to 
be too unstable and wicked to be entrusted with that 
sacred secret. 

So he was given a license to go and persecute tli 
Christians, even unto death, and he did it with malice 
and anger, which was his nature. He killed James, 
the Just, son of Alpheus and the other Mary. James 
was called the Lord's brother, after the flesh. This 
wicked deed was done at Jerusalem. 

I shall have occasion to refer to him after he was 
converted, as he was of great learning, and King 
Agrippa said unto him, "Paul, thou art beside thy- 
self ; much learning hath made thee mad." 

Paul was Paul after all, and I shall refer to him as 
uttering the truth that exactly agrees with my theory 
of the resurrection, and swearing to it as truth, as no 
other man who is alleged to have written a portion of 
the Bible has done. 

I receive the truth wherever I can find it, and as 
many of my readers put great confidence in Paul and 
his teachings I may score a point in exactly agreeing 
with him on the resurrection from the dead, although 
I might differ from him on other points. If a teacher 
teaches truth I receive it, although it might be Satan, 
the wisest and greatest teacher recorded in your 
Bible. 

For it says that God delivered two of His children 
over to Satan that he might teach them not to blas- 

63 



pheme. This speaks well for his moral character and 
great learning, with liberty to teach. So be it, so be 
it. They were Philetas and Hymenseus. 

I would say to my readers that the way to get 
knowledge is to hear the argument of your opponent. 

I feel thankful that Adam ate the forbiddn fruit 
that enabled him to know good from evil, and trans- 
mitted that great blessing to us. I thank heaven for 
this boon, that preachers generally term the original 
sin. And some of them (very respectable and 
learned men) have declared that hell is paved with 
infants' skulls on account of this original sin. 

Verily I must say that all who believe in such a 
personal God are insane on that point to a greater 
or less degree. If there be such a God I would say 
to him : "Drive me out of Eden when you please, 
but first let me partake of the fruit of the knowledge 
of good and evil. I want to be wise. I will risk the 
salvation or damnation it brings." 

But listening to such preaching, which has but one 
side, is of but little value to the hearer. It is like the 
politician who reads his one-sided paper which spouts 
out its lies, all of which he sucks down as the truth. 
And of him who only goes to hear his own side ex- 
pounded, what can he know that's worth the know- 
ing, whether he be Republican, or Democrat, or Pro- 
hibitionist ? He might as well be nothing. 

This foolish and selfish habit that men have got 
into of hearing only one side of any question and 
then deciding in favor of it because they want it so, 
without any evidence being introduced by the other 
side, is like a certain Dutchman I once heard of who, 

64 



when a lawyer liad made his plea for the defence, 
said: "He is innocent, certain." But when the pros- 
ecuting lawyer was heard then he said; "He is 
guilty, sure." 

I am indebted to my opponents for most all that I 
know, for I was born a "-nothing," and taught in the 
"know but little doctrine " for many years. But I 
thank the stars of glory which taught that one star 
differed from another star in light or glory, but that 
it took all the stars of heaven to complete the galaxy. 

And so of men, with their multiplicity of thoughts. 
And are they not all entitled to a hearing? Hear 
them all, and embrace only that which is good. Try 
every man by his own standard. 

If there is any man who has a theory of a god or 
gods that I have not heard or read of, I should like 
to hear or read it, if it is worth the hearing, or has 
any vim to it, whether it be Christian, Jewish, Ma- 
hometan, or Pagan, or any of those numerous sects, 
the most of which have passed aAvay, with their gods 
and images, which will eventually be the fate of all 
personal gods. Those gods have fled, but man is here. 



65 



CHAPTER VII, 



HERE are the first eight verses of the thirteentli 
cliapter of RevelatioTis, which will furnish food 
for thought to thinkers : 

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a 
beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and 
ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon 
heads the name of blasphemy. 

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, 
and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and Ins mouth 
of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and 
his seat, and great authority. 

• And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to 
death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the 
worlk wondered after the beast. 

And they, worshipped the dragon which gave power 
unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, say- 
ing, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make 
war with him? 

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking 
great things and blasphemies ; and power was given 
unto him to continue forty and two months. 

And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against 

66 



God, to blaspheme liis name, and his tabernacle, and 
tliem that dwell in heaven. 

And it was given unto him to make war with the 
saints, and to overcome them : and power was given 
him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. 

And all that dwell upon the earth shal! worship 
him, whose names are not written in the book of life 
of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. 

John's predictions have not been fulfilled, and I 
thsnk they never will be, as there are so many who 
who are not travelling that road now. 

The following article is from the " Open Court," 
and will be found to contain some interesting state- 
ments : 

"The statistics of religion and theology, of late 
more accurately collected and recorded than ever be- 
fore, give small encouragement to those who claim 
prosperity and predominance for the system founded 
on recognition of Jesus as the Christ. 

"Of the 1,200,000,000 of the world's population, 
390,000,000 are nominally Christian. Less than one- 
third of them, perhaps 110,000,000, are Protestants, 
and these Protestants declare the Christianity of the 
others to be seriously defective, both in regard to 
faith and practice. The Protestants in the United 
States number 30,000,000, but of these only 9,000,000 
are church members or communicants, that is, Chris- 
tian in the meaning assumed to be the correct one by 
the clergy and the churches. But since these 9,000,- 
000 of actual Christians are divided among forty-five 
sects, which seem to insist more on their distinctive 
and divisive peculiarities than either on the beliefs 

67 



which they hold in common, or the purpose they pur- 
sue in common, they surely cannot have the efficiency 
of an army under a single leader. Their character as 
churches militant is shown rather by their contests 
with each other than by united warfare against the 
vice and ignorance everywhere around them. Hold- 
ing very diverse and often opposite opinions, they all 
refer to the Bible as their rule, and as the only and 
sufficient rule of life and duty. And yet this as- 
sumed allegiance to the Bible, far from tending to 
unite the five varieties of Presbyterians, eight of Bap- 
tists and twelve of Methodists, actually helps to keep 
them separated. Investigation and criticism, though 
opposed by a majority of the clergy, are constantly 
tending towards still further division. Thus, contact 
with American ideas has caused division even among 
Roman Catholics; and the Episcopal church, ranked 
as one among the forty-five above mentioned, has its 
practical division into high, broad, low and reformed. 

"Critical investigation, as I have said, is now pur- 
sued in all civilized countries more persistently than 
ever. Nevertheless, so far has clerical teaching ef- 
fected a popular distrust of reason in reference to re- 
ligion that an immense majority of the church mem- 
bership in this country still hold firmly to beliefs 
which research, scientific and literary, has thoroughly 
disproved ; such, for instance, as the unitary character 
and divine inspiration of the Old and New Testa- 
ments. 

"If the foundation fails, what will become of the 
edifice ? If the corner-stone crumbles, what will avail 
the claim that the building was founded on a rock?" 

68 



When I take a mental view of the past and behold 
man in his infancy, more helpless and ignorant than 
the brute creation, then I wonder and ask why did 
not God create man independent of all other beings, 
and I hear a low voice saying: "I did, but foolish 
man has made it otherwise. If they had followed my 
injunctions it would have been well ; but my servant. 
Job, made a fool of himself, and went crazy, and 
brought evil on himself by disobeying my commands, 
and violating the law of his being, and brought on 
boils, as did Lazarus," spoken of in the parable 
of Dives and Lazarus. 

Then I wondered again, and asked myself Avith all 
sincerity : " Does man really bring those diseases on 
himself, or does God send them on him to punish 
him, as many people contend ? " He says he does not. 

Then I marvelled, and put those two wonders of 
mine together as perpendicular and base as positives. 
Then I look. Then I figure, and then I find that 
those two wonders are equal to one hundred per cent, 
each, brought to feet is one hundred feet. 

Now I have mastered the mystery. Here is the 
problem. 

The two creations are supposed to equal 142 per 
cent., of which 42 per cent, take the first creation, 
and 100 per cent, take the second creation. 

This applies to man, woman and child. 

The above problem is figured by the rule of three, 
minus the fractions, either vulgar or decimal. 

But when we take men within the age of reason, 
from 21 to 70 years, we find a large percentage em- 
bracing the true revelation, giving man's destiny. 

69 



I will give their percentage by the same rale. 

In all Christian nations there is 59 per cent, of the 
said men who believe in the first resurrection, which 
is scientific and demonstrative, and has no Satan. 

But there is but 41 per cent, of those who come 
within the said age, from 21 to 70, who believe in the 
second creation of devils and hell. 

I care not what men say about it. Figures and 
problems don't lie. I am wandering about nature 
and God now, and as I wrote the wind came in sqnalls 
and the leaves blew around the house like so many 
sparrows. Then I stopped writing. I wondered that 
my opponent said that not a sparrow falleth to the 
ground without his father's notice. 

Well, can't I help him out on this? Yes, I have, 
it is true. But it is my god, not his, and there is not 
a leaf that flies in the air, without head or wings, 
without my Father's notice. 

Then he says it is written in his Bible that the 
Lord God of Israel told his children as warriors to go 
out and fight their enemies and there should not a 
hair fall from their heads. Well, then I Avondered. 
Then I figured. I made a low estimate of the num- 
ber of hairs that had fallen from my head and they 
amounted to 1,168,000, and I have plenty of hair 
left. I am not at all bald. 

Then I concluded that this army of men were all 
bald. What other conclusion could I come to ? My 
opponent is a truthful man, and I respect him very 
much. He declares that that was the word of his 
God. 



70 



That goo.l prophet, Elijah, was baldheaded. So 
be it. 

Then my friendly opponent says his father feeds 
the young ravens when they cry. There, don't say 
any more. 

I have always considered ravens, crows, and Eng- 
lish sparrows a pest instead of a benefit. And now, 
my friends, if your father feeds the young ravens and 
feeds the old hen hawks with chickens I must think 
you are a great deal better than your father. 

Well, I believe in progression, and I know that 
you would sooner kill a hawk if it was stealing your 
chickens then you would feed it. Marvelous! 

One more example. Among the ministers are 
man}^ of my good friends, and very excellent men 
they are, too. I will quote from their great and wise 
preacher, who was King over Israel in Jerusalem. 

What does he preach? He says that the great God 
who formed all things both the fool and the trans- 
gressor. 

He also says the righteous live long on the earth, 
and that the wicked shall not live out half of their 
days. (Who will live out the other half?) 

He says that the good man showeth favor and 
lendeth. He will guide his affairs with discretion. 
Surely he will not be moved forever. He shall be in 
everlasting remembrance. His heart is fixed trusting 
in the Lord. 

Let us contrast your wisest and best preacher of 
the second creation with my most foolish and worst 
preacher of the first creation, Job. 

71 



Solomon was a wise man, with all his faults; and 
Job was a foolish and crazy man with all his riches. 

Those wise and good men, his friends Eliphaz the 
Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, Zopliar the Naamath- 
ite, who were all very excellent men, were so closely 
copied by Solomon that it made him appear to be 
more than head and shoulders the superior of the 
great minds of his times. 

But I must tell you about Job, your patient man. 
Read his history. I call him the most impatient man 
who ever lived. 

Read what he says in the twelfth chapter of the 
book which bears his name, wherein he censures the 
pretensions of his friends to superior knowledge. He 
says : ••' No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom 
shall die with you." 

I know that the wicked flourish like a green bay 
tree, and that the righteous man is cut off in his 
righteousness. These things are but illustrations of 
his power ; but the thunderings of his voice who can 
understand? 

Now God answereth Job through the mouth of 
Elihu, one of the four friends of Job, with this 
question : " Canst thou draw out the leviathian with a 
hook, or his tongue with a cord, which thou lettest 
down? Canst thou put a hook into his nose, or bore 
his jaw through with a thorn? " 

You will remember that Elihu was a Buzite, and 
he buzzed Job out of his foolish nonsense. 

Now you will understand that the book of Job was 
a Chaldean dialogue, with five characters, and one 
supernumerary called God. 

72 



But the whole book is a fiction. It was taken by 
the Jewish rabbi Helekiah from Babylon, Avhen that 
people were dismissed from that great city because 
the inhabitants had no use for them on account of 
their worthlessness. They had so befuddled Job that 
they Avere glad to be relieved of their presence. 
Thereafter they were allowed to have home rule by 
spells, but lost it for good eighteen hundred years 
ago the second and last chapters not in the original. 

A people so foolish as to harbor a God who will 
not let them defend themselves one-seventh of the 
time cannot be a nation long. 

Poor Ireland is in the same boat. 



73 



CHAPTER VIII. 



OUR visible father the Sun, our mother the Moon, 
and their children the Stars, are a happy family 
in the heavens. There is no imagination about this. 
They rule the day and night, and are not ashamed of 
their actions. They mete out that which is good gen- 
erally to their children here below who are individually 
of but short duration — not long-lived like the children 
above, but have their day and time, and are gone. 

The following is from the pen of Mr. W. Perkins 
of Kansas City, Mo., and will be read with interest, 
as it fully elucidates what I have already said about 
the happy family in heaven : 

"This great luminary is the central controlling 
power of our planetary family. The nebulous theory 
as shown in my previous article is being recognized 
as the true one, so fast as science is taking the place 
of bible superstition. Being eternal in the past and 
to be so in the future, matter has no creator. In one 
sense, as natural philosophy teaches it is inert, in an- 
other it is ever changing. As it had no creator, nei- 
ther had it any supernatural governor. Its changes 
and its destination are due to its own inherent nature. 

" The sun being in all respects immensely the great- 

74 



est orb of our solar system, it has excited the more 
patient and accurate study of astronomers. 

"Difficult as this has been, yet much has been 
learned about it. Its size and distance from us have 
been measured though, not precisely, still with reas- 
onable certainty. The orbit of our earth being ellip- 
tical, we are in parts nearer and again farther from 
the sun. Hence the average distance is 93,000,000 
miles. This distance is too immense to comprehend. 
By comparisons, however, we try to approximate. 
The swiftest cannon ball would make the distance in 
fifteen years. A railroad train at thirty miles per 
hour would be about 54,000 years in making the trip. 
A round trip ticket at the usual fare Avould cost Jay 
Gould, with his untold millions, more than he could 
pay. Were a child born of a virgin, fathered by the 
holy ghost, with arms long enough to reach the sun 
and silly enough to dip its fingers in it, the incon- 
ceivable rapidity of nerve transmission would leave 
the child more that 100 years without feeling the 
sensation at its brain. 

''The same difficulty confronts us in trying to con- 
ceive the size of the sun. Were it hollowed out and 
our earth dropped in, with its moon 140,000 miles dis- 
tant circling around us, there would still be space out- 
side left. Its diameter in round numbers is, 852,000 
miles ; its circumference 2,556,000. At the same 
time the solid part of the orb is surrounded by its im- 
mense photosphere, then a chromosphere, and still a 
wonderful changing light termed corona. 

" While the telescopes, greatly improved in our 
age of progressive science, have shown much of the 

75 



surrounding, the last are seen only when the sun is 
in a total eclipse. For years the most extraordinary 
efforts have been made by the best astronomers to 
learn all possible to be seen of these. Nevertheless, 
the same efforts will continue and photographs be 
taken of tlie sun's surroundings. The more visible 
photosphere and chromosphere yet changing are more 
easily and accurately examined. The telescope, and 
more especially the spectroscope, reveal metals in 
white heat melted to vapor floating in what we may 
term these atmospheres of the mighty sun. Among 
them are many of the same nature and constituents 
of those on oar earth. The same is true of the stars, 
which in all respect are like our sun. 

" Again small and great spots of all shapes are 
seen, and while their locality is not stationary it is 
enough so to determine the rotary motion of the sun. 
This is estimated, i. e., its revolution, to be in 28 of 
our days. The larger spots at times in our clear- 
est atmosphere and with good eyes, may be seen 
without a magnifier. That they have more or less 
influence on our planet is about certain. The largest 
spot yet seen appeared on Nov. 16, 1882, attended by 
an extraordinary electric storm. Wires and telegrams, 
as reported by the leading papers of that date, were 
disastrously disturbed. Astronomers in their patient 
investigations for the nature and causes of these 
spots hold varying theories. All agree that they are 
not solid but of floating gas-like material. The more 
plausible theory is that they are vast upheavals from 
a volcanic action of the sun's solid surface, attended 
as it were by a downheaval of the same matter as it 

76 



cools and condenses. Some have suggested that the 
opening allows the sight to go down to the earth's 
dark surface — but such is not probable. 

" The heat continually given out by this great lu- 
minary is yet, beyond its distance and size, the more 
incomprehensible. There is indeed no comparison in 
each enabling us to grasp or measure the volume of 
this heat. The heat or fire of all the coal in our 
world would not keep up the heat radiating from the 
sun one moment. Millions of meteoric substances, 
called shooting'stars, are constantly descending to our 
planet. Their qualities and component parts are 
nearly identical with our own materials. Most of 
them comparatively small are consumed like matches, 
lighted by atmospherical friction. The larger ones 
lodge heated and deeply buried on our surface, and 
are taken to our museums. Great numbers go to the 
sun by its greater attraction and contribute to the 
supply of its heat. And yet, just how it is kept up 
is an unsolved problem. Its immense downward 
pressure and condensation explain in part the prob- 
lem. At the same time there is no reason to doubt 
its gradual diminution of caloric the chief element 
concerning us. However as the last lecture I listened 
to from Procter showed that our earth was losing its 
surface water to the thickness of a thin sheet of pa- 
per annually, so our vast sun parts with no more than 
that ratio of heat. As in our life time we cannot fam- 
ish for water, no more may we fear freezing. Cer- 
tainly not the good family taking my Florida farm at 
half its value. Besides let us consider that nature is 
full of adaptation. Animals in or near the frigid 

77 



zone are thickly furred ; in the torrid, naked. If the 
elements are to become incapable of sustaining life, 
the process will be mild and gradual. So as to the 
desire of animals to live. A good woman told me 
years ago that she knew she must soon die, but she 
still wished to live. So I said you know you must 
sleep, but now in midday you wish to keep awake. 
As 9 or 10 o'clock comes you will wish to sleep. And 
so I said living naturally, will it be as to our final 
sleep. I stood with her dear children by her side as 
she sat in her rocker, a month after, she willingly and 
I may almost add enjoyingly took her last long sleep. 

" Nature will take care of her sun, our earth and 
all its family of planets, with all its sentient beings 
on them, if we but love and follow here beneficent 
laws. 

"I should have said in connection Avith the sun's 
revolution it probably has with its family of planets 
a greater, grander sweep thiough the infinite space. 
Possibly it is destined to get round in trillions upon 
trillions of years to the same, point in its orbit. Yet 
no finite intellect could more than venture a conjec- 
ture. Light travels 12 millions of miles per minute. 
A star is now seen so far off in space that its light is 
3500 years in reaching us. This distance may be 
less than the diameter of the sun's orbit if he has 
one. Planets next." 



78 



CHAPTER IX. 



URING my pilgrimage I have met many avIio 
do not understand what death means. They 
appear to be so mixed up with the matter of past and 
present that they are completely muddled. 

I will endeavor to clear their minds on that point 
by references to that which is true and to that which 
is false. 

Death seems to them as the hard words did to 
the learned schoolmaster of England some two hun- 
dred years ago. 

Sixty years ago I read John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's 
Progress" by candle light. In his search after Hon- 
esty and Plaindiealing John was the positive, but he 
could not find the two negatives. (Hear! Hear I) 

He stumbled upon a very lofty-looking fellow one 
morning, when the following dialogue occurred : 

"Good morning, sir; and can you tell me where 
the two men I am in search of may be found? " 

"What are their names pray? " 

"Honesty and Plaindealing." 

"No. I know no such beggarly fellows as they. 

79 



My conversation is with those of a higher rank." 

" Who art thou, pray ; and what might be thy rank?" 

"I am a school teacher." 

" And what do thoii teach, pray? " 

" I teach hard words, hard sentences, such as manus, 
domus, and the like." 

"Ah ! Manus, domus. Pray, what do they mean?" 

"They mean manus, domus; and what would you 
have them to mean else?" 

"Yes; but have they no definition?" 

" O yes; they define manus and domus and the like." 

"Yes, I understand. But have they no significa- 
tion? " 

" Yes, indeed; they signify manus and domus. And 
what else would you have them to signify? " 

And here the pilgrim John failed by the problem 
of the one positive defining the two negatives, or 
finding them. 

But the reader will remember that that was two 
hundred years ago. 

Don't compare the Johns of two hundred or two 
thousand years ago with the Johns of to-day. 

If the John of here and now does not know more 
than the John eighteen hundred years ago did, then 
I am ready to exclaim : " O Christian revelation and 
progress, in what have you progressed?" 

For the information of my readers I will give a 
brief biographical sketch of the two Johns. 

They were both fishermen, without a common 
school education, but both presumed to teach other 
men wisdom. But do not be deceived by either of 
them. Don't believe what they say because they say 

80 



it. Be men. Dispute every inch of the ground that 
does not square with your reason. 

The first John was born in Capernaum, four fur- 
longs from Tiberus. His father was Zebedee, a 
fisherman, of Capernaum, who married the daughter 
of Joseph, a carpenter, of Nazareth in Galilee, by the 
name of Salome. They had two sons, whose names 
were James and John. They were brought up as 
fisher boys, with their father. They were without 
education. They followed the occupation of fisher- 
men until John was twenty-five years of age. He 
was born in that obscure town of fishermen 4 years 6 
months A. D., and at the age of twenty-five he left 
that business and became a fisher of men, having a 
call to catch men instead of fishes as men are caught 
very much as fish are caught — by deception and force, 
and in no other way generally. 

If the ignorant and perhaps profane and intemper- 
ate fishermen were not the proper and best men to 
promulgate your Christian gospel, then Jesus, whom 
you call your Lord and Saviour, made a great mis- 
take. 

You can take whichever horn of the dilemma you 
please. I shall be satisfied, and am willing you 
should enjoy your opinion, but I know whereof I 
affirm. 

I will now give you a short account of the insignifi- 
cant John whose additional name is Atwood. He 
was born in that obscure town called Provincetown, 
fifty-four miles from Boston by water and one hun- 
dred and eighteen by land, on December 26, A. D. 
1811, at 12.20 p. m., just eighteen minutes after the 

81 



jury of the apostles had agreed on a verdict that 
their lord of glory had arisen from the dead, and 
that time and life were still to go on. 

You are aware that doubting Thomas was born on 
the twenty-first day of December, when the Son of 
Righteousness had disappeared in the Winter Solstice. 
He declared that time would be no longer, and that 
the God of Salvation would never appear again. This 
story is nothing more nor less than an allegory. 

And your John declares in his revelations that he 
saw the angel of Time standing one foot on the earth 
and the other foot on the sea, and declared that time 
should be no longer, and that death and hell were 
cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, which was the 
second death. 

Now you will perceive that our friend John in his 
old age had become a little Thomasy and visionary. 

Well, John, and his brother fisherman, Peter, that 
arch deceiver and expert fisherman, had convinced 
the doubting Thomas. 

As I have mentioned this Peter it may be proper 
to tell who he really was. As there is a large amount 
of Peterology in the world my readers may want to 
know where he came from. 

Well, as far as we can learn from the account given 
of him in the New Testament he was the son of Si- 
mon a magician of Alexandria, Egypt, and brother 
of Andrew. They were both ignorant fishermen on 
the river Niger, and subsequently moved to Caper- 
naum, and sold their fish in the Tiber us market. 

This Peter was born in Alexandria, Egypt, seven 
years before the Christian era. His name was 

82 



changed when he was called to become a fisher of 
men. 

I forbear giving you his character, buL will refer 
the reader to the writings of his friends in the New 
Testament. It says indirectly that he was a married 
man, and that he left his wife and wandered around 
and had no abiding place, and became so egotistical 
that I prefer not to say much about him, further than 
that he killed Ananias and Sapphira, two harmless 
citizens, for effect as an advertisement for his busi- 
ness, which was catching ignorant men and saving 
their souls by ticketing them through to heaven, 
with their baggage checked. 

The account given by his friends shows that the 
evidence of two witnesses, whose character was never 
impeached, agreed, although given three hours apart ; 
and was overcome by the testimony of one who 
cursed and swore and lied, and forsook his best 
friends. Shame on him. 

I have charo;ed him with nothino- but what his 
friends say of him. 

Now the Jewish law in which they believed, given 
by Moses, says Avhere two or three witnesses are 
agreed every word shall be established as truth. 

But it makes my heart weary when I see good, 
well-meaning men, honest in their belief, wandering 
after what John calls the beast that made fire come 
down from heaven, as described in the thirteenth 
chapter of the book of Revelations. 

It makes my heart bleed with sympathy for them, 
but all I can do for them is to show them the true 
from the false, and let them go on with the erroneous 

83 



idea of life if they like such a craft and such a voy- 
age ; and it is wonderfully strange that full grown 
men will follow such teachers and believe them to 
be honest. I have one more John to refer to, and 
that will fill the list of the John Pilgrims. There 
are three things to be considered always, and now we 
have three Johns. The other John was surnamed 
Bunyan. He wrote an account of his pilgrimage in 
jail in Bedford, England, while confined there as a 
criminal. 

John the Revelator wrote his pilgrim's progress 
on the isle of Patmos, having been sent there for hav- 
ing violated the Roman law — it was so decided in 
court. 

Thus you see when they wrote the great works of 
their lives they were both imprisoned, and both al- 
leged criminals. 

They stand in a negative position to me, as I 
never violated any law of my country, and never have 
been arrested for any crime. I have commanded 
thirty-eight different vessels, and have had many dif- 
ferences with officers of the United States, collectors 
of customs, captains of cutters, and others, but never 
came off: second best. 

I never was fined, never smuggled a cent's worth of 
goods, never wronged the government of the United 
States nor of the state of Massachusetts to my 
knowledge, but I have been greatly wronged in my 
property by both. 

I always treated the national and state governments 
as I did individuals, but I have been robbed by both. 
I will not advise my readers to deal honestly with 

84 



either of tliem. My experience leads me to believe 
that the present state of affairs will not warrant it, 
but I advise every man to be honest with himself 
and other individuals. 

I will relate a little of my experience, as it may 
interest if it does not benefit some of my readers. 

I had my vessel, the schooner Ousel of Province- 
town, wrongly libelled, and I was brought before the 
United States court. I proved that I had not vio- 
lated any law, and was acquitted by my plea of self- 
defence. 

I am the only man in the county of Barnstable who 
ever won his case as an owner of a vessel employed 
in the codfishery business after having been com- 
plained of and brought before the United States 
court, but there have been very many decisions 
rendered against owners of vessels under bounty law. 

Although the case was decided in my favor, I was 
obliged to pay all the costs of the court. Two years 
after the decision, and when I was sick in bed, the 
United States marshal summoned me to appear be- 
fore the court or pay the costs of one hundred dollars 

I was too ill to appear and told him so, and also 
that T ought not to be compelled to pay the sum. I 
objected to signing the bonds because the other party 
had been exempted. I asked the reason why one 
should be exempted and not both, and the clerk re- 
plied that the other was a "sailor man." 

I told him I was a " sailor man," and had left my 
vessel to come to Boston to attend to this case, and 
that I claimed exemption on the same ground the 
other party had been exempted. He then told me 

85 



that I had property while the other man did not have 
any. Then I replied that there really was less need 
of my giving bonds, as I could pay costs if I was 
defeated and would, but he would not reason, and 
I had to sign. Such is law. 

That was some forty years ago, when I was 
younger than I am now. At that time I supposed 
there was a disposition in the government officials to 
deal honestly with the people, but my experience 
has produced a different opinion concerning some of 
them at least. 

The United States marshal said he knew it was a 
hard case, and that it was wrong to make me p?y the 
money, but there was no escape from it. He said he 
had a similar case once on a bark, but they made him 
pay the costs. I asked him how much the costs of 
the >court were, and he said they were eightj^-five 
dollars, and his fee for coming down and serving the 
summons was fifteen dollars, making one hundred 
dollars. 

He said he would throw off his fee and five dollars 
from the court costs, and if the court would not al- 
low it he would pay it out of his own pocket. 

I paid the eighty dollars, and thanked him for his 
kindness, and told him he was a true friend to jus- 
tice, although he was an officer of the law. 

The story of the Good Samaritan, who was a true 
friend to the suffering man when the priests and 
deacons of the law passed by on the other side, came 
vividly to my mind. 

I don't ask you to believe this statement, for it may 

86 



seem incredible; but I have the papers and can 
produce them. 

There are many other things stranger than fiction 
which I might relate, but not wishing to be egotisti- 
cal I forbear. 

I always believed more in doing good than in tell- 
ing others to do so. 



87 



CHAPTER X. 



THE whole secret concerning life, death and fu- 
ture existence is involved in the misconception 
as to what really constitutes the soul. The Rev. J. 
H. Weeks is right when he says the soul is that part 
of the being which never dies. 

I have heretofore explained that that part of man 
that existed before the individual was formed will 
exist after the individual has passed away, and is the 
immortal soul. 

But the ego, or I, that is, my thoughts perish at 
death. What has a beginning must have an ending. 
But Evolution, Revolution and Dissolution are ever 
goingon, so the matter which comprises our body, 
which is the soul, must always move, which is the true 
nature of our god, who is the god of all the people. 

But we have with us a book called the word of an- 
other god, which is not in our constitutional Bible to 
men. 

Some of oirr opponents endeavor to make us believe 
that the Bible of Moses teaches us the true character J 

of God, while others say that Jesus proves that he is 
God manifest in the flesh ; that is, that man is the 

88 



omiscient God personified. Thou shalt have no other 
god besides me, that is man, said Jesus. 

This I accept and demonstrate. 

But a larger class mix the two contradictory books 
together, and make hodge-podge of both the Old and 
New Testaments. 

Here I refer to the two separate creations I have 
pointed out throughout this work. 

The last creation is the theological creation. That 
is the one I am dealing with in this chapter. 

If you wish to be wise shut your mouth and open 
your eyes. You have heretofore been taught the 
opposite, that is to shut your eyes and open your 
mouth in order to make you wise. This has been the 
method followed by your wise teachers. They threw 
off their manliness, dropped on their knees, shut their 
eyes, opened their mouths, and prayed to God in the 
skies. 

But we will see what the Book says. 

In it we find two accounts of immaculate concep- 
tions. The first was by a male, and the second by a 
female — both impossible. 

The first was alleged to be by the male Lord God, 
who created Adam of dust, without mixture. That is 
the definition of the word, and we have no right to 
dispute the Lord God's word, if we believe him 
to be the true creator. 

Maculate means mixed seed, and is described in 
the first creation, male and female, every time. Don't 
•get the two stories mixed, because many gods and 
popular gods have mixed them, and man copied. 

The dean of the Divinity School of Harvard Uni- 

89 



versity was a level-headed student in theological mat- 
ters as far as he went, but he did not hew to the line. 
He feared the chips. 

But I must hew to the line if the chips fly in my 
face. I have no creed but the American, the gospel 
of which is "the people, by the people, and for the 
people." 

I have no axe to grind ; no God to defend or offend. 
My God is never angry with his offspring. He only 
carries out his law of life and death inherent in him- 
self without malice or fore thought. His fixed law in 
nature deals alike with all of his children. 

I cannot close this chapter better than by adding 
the remarks of Professor Charles Carroll Everett, 
dean of the Divinity School of Harvard University, 
who spoke as follows at a meeting of some two hun- 
dred Unitarians at the Hotel Vendome. His subject 
was "The Person of Christ." He said: 

"The present church says that Jesus was God 
because the older church claimed that he was God. 

" I come here to say that he was man. 

"Let us look at the circumstances which raised 
God to the church head. It is not possible to doubt 
that Jesus was a disciple of John. John baptized 
him. While the church thought that Christ performed 
miracles seems to indicate that he was not human, 
we must remember that other prophets of the Jews 
performed miracles and were considered human. So, 
as far as working miracles were concerned, Christ 
was human. 

"Then his resurrection. 

"Unquestionably the reappearance of Christ after 

90 



death did much to change the minds of the disciples, 
but even the messiahship of Christ does not prove 
that he was not human. 

" There is no such thing as a mere man, and the 
question — is God man? — shows which has been at 
fault. It is not man we want to study, it is God." 



91 



CHAPTER XI. 



I 



N this chapter the Evohition theory will be more 
fully explained, and its truth established, and as 
it clashes with Hugh Miller's doctrine the latter 
must be declared to be erroneous. 

Mr. Miller makes many assertions, but fails to prove 
his position. 

He says Adam was formed fiom the dust, and that 
he received a wife called Eve from his creator, the 
Lord. 

This is mere assertion on his part, but as if to make 
it more binding he says the men who wrote the rec- 
ords of those days were inspired by the Lord, which 
is another just as senseless assei'tiou and that it must 
be true. 

That is Mr. Miller's position in opening the affir- 
mative of this discussion. 

In behalf of the negative I affirm that I am in- 
spired of God to say that his position is false, and 
shall so prove it. 

He has not offered any tangible evidence to the 
effect that the first human being was made of full 

92 



size and of man's stature, instead of passing through 
the evohition process from infancy to manhood. 

As all script or scripture is said to be written by 
inspiration so am I inspired to write that this earth 
previous to its formation was simply matter in an in- 
distinguishable mass, or as dust in the air, but by the 
power of evolution and the force of cohesion a planet 
was formed, which gravitated to its natural place in 
the planetary procession, and begun its revolutions 
around the central planet, or sun, moving as it were 
a living and intelligent being, although without indi- 
vidual knowledge, but performing its work by force 
of natural laws which it could not evade. 

So the great God formed or evolved all individual 
beings from this matter, and implanted in them a 
brain, which, after a healthy development, constitu- 
ted them beings capable of thinking and acting ap- 
parently upon their own responsibility, and held them 
accountable as such. 

(Here ends the theory of Charles Darwin.) And 
that of John At wood begins. 

Then the creator seemed to say: "Let nsform man 
in our own image, and let him be one of us. And 
we three be one God, father, son and intelligent 
spirit in man, male and female; and they shall be 
fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth, and 
have dominion over the earth, and all things thereon." 

This finishes our Evolution and Revolution. 

So man is the omniscient god, and a part of the 
great whole, manifested in form. 

So is every individual a microcosm, or a little 
world in himself, but of comparatively short dura- 

93 



tion on this earth ; and when the machine is worn 
out or disarranged the man ceases to breathe, and 
then Dissolution performs its part in the programme. 

These statements are facts. No matter what we 
may think or what we may desire, there can be no 
intelh'gence without an organized brain, and there 
can be no brain without material to form it. 

All facts are things that exist, and all multiples 
are but shadows of the facts. The shadow is not 
anything. The shadow of the most intellectual man 
who ever lived is without intelligence, and does not 
even occupy any space. 

All religions are founded on dreams, and do not 
and cannot have any existence in nature. 

I have only three books to support my theory of 
the creation, whereas Hugh Miller has thirty-seven, 
three-quarters of Avhich are in the Old Testament, 
but ttiey are contradictory regarding historical facts, 
dreamy, and disposed to suit the wants of different 
ages and people. 

Job was fiist placed next to Genesis, being the 
second book, whereas it is now the eighteenth book 
in your King James translation of the Bible. 

Solomon's Songs, tliose love stories, were placed in 
the first chronological account, being the fourteenth 
book. Now they are the twenty-second book. 

I give these as samples of the many changes which 
have been made, too numerous to record. The 
names of a great many individuals have also been 
changed. When bad men became converted to and 
embraced some particular creed their names were 
changed, and their old deeds blotted out. 

94 



In the New Testament are many such instances, 
which are acknowledged to be such by the Miller 
theory, and the work as a whole is no more reliable 
than is the Old Testament. 

True history does not change men's names, nor 
falsify records. The first collection contained twenty- 
seven books, whereas King James' translation has 
only twenty -six, and they are very differently arranged 
as to position, and many of tlie dates are merely 
guessed at. All of which is unsatisfactory from a 
historical stand point. 

Hugh Miller is welcome to his multitude of wit- 
nesses who are unable to withstand the searching in- 
quiry of cross-examination. 

I will produce only three witnesses, the first being 
the first chapter of Genesis, giving an account of the 
creation; the second is the book of Job as originally 
written, giving man's duty to man ; and the third is 
the unwritten out-door book of nature, the bible of 
God, ever true and made manifest in the five senses 
of all human beings. 

Those three books are my witnesses, and my op- 
ponent has the privilege of cross-examining them as 
much as he likes. He will find them true at all 
times. 

The sun shines, the wind blows, men are here, and 
the three make one intelligent life. There could be 
no intelligence without every one of the three. 

My readers must be aware that a monad is an in- 
visible substance without parts. A formal atom or 
atoms combined, like a mass of water, show life when 
acted upon by the wind ; but when it is unmoved and 

95 



the sun shines upon it, it stagnates or dies, as it is 
termed, but really is passing through a change and 
forms another and different organic body, which is 
still at the work of Evolution, cieating as it were mill- 
ions of living individuals that can fly in the air. 

They are formed without paternal transmission, 
and have neither father nor mother, nor do they ever 
produce offspring, no children, nor grandchildren; 
but they make themselves known when their sting 
enters our flesh. We know tliey are there. 

The mosquito does not produce its like, as do other 
animals, but are full grown when they launch forth, 
like Hugh Miller's Adam; but they are not formed 
out of dust. 

Dust is death without liquid, and cannot be made 
into a living body by God or man without a mixture. 
Water is life itself, and when a mass dies it forms a 
living being, without or with dust, as the case may be 
in the formation of larger beings, but all of them are 
maculate productions. 



96 



CHAPTER XII. 



SECTARIANISM is a fearful thing in our midst. 
It is stealing silently along in the dark like 
a midnight assassin, with a drawn dagger, and will 
phmge it deep in the heart of the nation if not checked. 

The first Christian church organized, and which 
laid claim to being the only Christian church, you 
admit has the prior claim to Christianity. This is 
indisputable. There is a larger proportion of crim- 
inals in that church than in any other, or among in- 
fidels and atheists. They furnish a less number of 
criminals in proportion to their numbers than any 
Christian sect. 

So much for pure Christianity, if there is any. 

But we should be thankful that the Bible furnishes 
so many ways to get to heaven, and sets those pious 
people quarrelling, or we should be all lost, and not 
one of us would dare say our soul was our own. 

My friends know, or ought to know, that our gov- 
ernment is based on the right of the people to govern, 
and that the people own the land and property com- 
prised within the United States, and when any one 
sect secures a majority that sect will set up a mon- 

• 97 



archy and declare Jesus the King and ruler of the 
nation, as Massachusetts did under the reign of our 
good Puritans, In open yiolation of the United States 
constitution they declared State sovereignty and put 
King Jesus at the head. 

Their governor was only commander-in-chief over 
the military forces, but the ministers of Jesus had to 
be supported by the State. All children were born 
orthodox, and when they arrived at the age of sixteen 
all males had to pay a tax to that church, whether 
their parents attended worship there or not. 

My father and mother were Methodists and mem- 
bers of a church of that denomination. My grand- 
father and great-grandfather were Methodists. 

But I was born Orthodox, and should have had to 
certificate over to the Methodists at the age of 
sixteen as my older brother had done, but the law 
was modified before I arrived at that age. 

I will relate a little story of my great-uncle, which 
occurred soon after the war of 1812. He was taken a 
prisoner by the English, but in a short time was 
given his liberty. He was very poor and in critical 
circumstances. To use his own words, which he 
printed in a book about 1827, the tithes gatherer 
threatened to levy on his property for what he called 
the support of the gospel, and decided to take his 
cow. 

Winter was approaching, and to look at the wan 
features and emaciated forms of his wife and two 
young children was like driving daggers to his heart. 

This he says led him to search the Bible to see 
what the gospel of Christ was, and he found it pur- 

98 



ported to be glad tidings unto all of the people ; but 
lie had learned from experience that a law said to be 
established by authority of the gospel was sad tid- 
ings of great grief to many men. 

I write this because many of my readers will hard- 
ly believe that our good old Orthodox fathers were 
so good as to give God all the glory, and ^l right to all 
the land and property besides. They declared that 
the earth was the Lord's and the fulness thereof, and 
some contend for that now. 

Happy mortals ! They don't own a foot of the 
land they stand on, and do not dare to say that their 
souls are their own. 

I was unfortunate in being born where I was and 
when I was, as the rulers of our government and 
our State say I was born a squatter ; and my father 
and giandfather were born squatters, and so were all 
the people now living in Provincetown who were 
born there. So says the lighthouse board at Wash- 
ington. I have letters from them to that effect. 

I quote Lyman Abbott, the great Orthodox leader. 
He is fifty years ahead of Beecher's time. I have no 
need of quoting him to prove what I say of Bible 
teaching. He is opening his eyes to historical facts. 

J5ut I must tell you a little about the ownership 
of Massachusetts. The teachers called of God to 
proclaim His ownership declared that they were 
right, and quoted the word of God, as they called it. 

They declared that Nebuchadnezzar, the King of 
the Chaldeans, was driven from his kingly throne 
into the fields, on his hands and knees, like a beast, 
and made to eat grass, or straw, like an ox, and be 

99 



LofC/ 



wet with the dews of the night from heaven, until he 
knew that the most high God ruled the affairs of men 
and appointed over them whomsoever He would (this 
is Israelitish fraud). Clouds of ignorance. 

Consult your Bible, and you will find that God or 
gods gave to man the Avhole creation, and he was to 
have dominion over the earth and every thing therein. 
Dominion is ownership or possession, and Nebuchad- 
nezzar was right in claiming the property ; but 
the upstart Jewish rabbis claimed everything for 
their Lord God, and the ministers of Massachusetts 
claimed it for the word of God to frighten men and 
women into obedience, and they did it for a. while. 

But I can hardly believe they were such fools as to 
believe it. It was done to frighten the people (as I 
have said) on the same principle that parents relate 
to their children the Elisha bear story, that is, to 
scare them into staying in the house on the Sabbath. 

I believe they did it as a scarecrow to keep their 
children in so they could not play out of doors. Some 
of them might have been sincere. 

I was taught by my father and mother that two 
she bears came out of the woods and tore forty and 
two children in pieces because they said to an old 
man: "Go up, bald head." I have no doubt that 
they believed the story, but that don't make it so. 
They told me I must not go out of doors on Sunday, 
and if I did the bears would come out of the woods 
and carry me off. 

This was done to scare me, for they knew there 
were not any bears in our woods, and the further and 

100 



more substantial fact was that there were no woods, 
let alone there being any bears. 

Dr. Abbott made another great mistake when he 
said that Paul showed his faith by his works. (I 
deny it.) He tauglit that by grace are ye saved, and 
not by works, lest any man should boast. And 
again, ''if through my lie the grace of God doth 
more abundautly abound," Avhy is it computed to 
me as sin? (that is the lie). 

Paul taught that salvation depended wholly on the 
faith that Jesus was the Christ, and had risen from 
the dead. 

It was the bishop at Jerusalem, called James the 
Just, the son of Alpheus and the othei* Mary, who 
was the Lord's brother after the flesh, that is he was 
half brother to Jesus, they having one father but two 
mothers. James believed in good works, rather than 
faith, he says, to others. Show me your faith with- 
out works and I will show you my faith with works. 

James did not believe that Jesus arose from the 
grave, and did not preach it at Jerusalem. He was 
appointed to preach to the Jcavs by the other Apostles 
in that great city, and was murdered by Paul before 
Paul was converted to the Thereputian doctrine ; 
and now he and his friends steal James' thunder and 
claim that it was written to the Hebrews from Italy 
by Timothy. But it is not true. 

James wrote this epistle to the Hebrews when 
Paul was Saul, the bad boy. And a bad fellow he 
was then, just the stuff they make saints of. 



101 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THIS chapter will contain much information for 
the fishermen and business men of Cape Cod 
generally. Look out for your interests, or you will 
lose what I have gained for you. I have been in- 
formed that the Old Colony is delaying freight to your 
disadvantage. 

The following is a list of freight rates from Prov- 
incetown to Boston from 1876 to 1882. In 1877, 
under the old rates, fl.OO per box billed at 500 
pounds ; 50 cents per barrel billed at 250 pounds. 
The same rates for fast or slow freight. 

In 1878 the rates were the same on boxes or barrels 
without regard to their weight. There was a slight 
increase in business from the previous year. 

In 1879 the rates were the same until the last part 
of the season, when the Old Colony railroad company 
doubled the rates on the morning train, which 
brought the most of the fish because the slow or reg- 
ular freight was so long on the road that it did not 
pay to ship by that train, as fish put on board the 
train Thursday afternoon would not arrive in Boston 
JViday in season to be sold that day, and hence 

102 



on Saturday morning the fish would be in poor order 
and the sale of the week over. 

Therefore it became necessary to send by the train 
that left Friday morning, about 5 o'clock, arriving in 
Boston about 10.20 the same day. 

The same fish leaving Proviiicetown Thursday 
evening would be switched off at Yarmouth or some 
other station, and attached to the morning train and 
taken through and received at Comercial wharf from 
11.30 to 12.30, or as soon as they could be got at, our 
teamsters unloading the cars by permission of the 
freight agent or clerks, in order to expedite business. 

But as business had increased under this arrange- 
ment the Old Colony railroad thought proper to 
double up the rates, although then we were having 
to pay more than double the rates from Portland by 
either of her roads. 

I saw that our trade in cod and haddock would be 
spoiled, as we could not compete with Portland, nor 
could we pay so high freight, in many instances 
amounting to five times as much as the Boston and 
Maine or the. Eastern road charged. 

Therefore I wrote to Mr. Choate, the president of 
the Old Colony road, saying to him that if he thought 
the freight from Provincetown was woi'th looking 
after I would like to have an interview with him at 
any place he might select. 

I received from him a reply appointing a time, 
and the place his office. He called in Mr. Kendrick, 
the general passenger agent, and Mr. Putnam, the 
general freight agent. 

1 produced my bills and sustained the charges I 

103 



had made, viz., that they were charging five times 
as much as other roads. I presented a bill from 
Provincetown for thirteen boxes and one barrel, for 
which we had paid f 34.00. 

I showed them one received the same week from 
Portland for twenty boxes for which we paid $10.00, 
it being for the same kind of fish and the same size of 
boxes, called long boxes, containing about 500 pounds 
of fish, say 600 pounds gross. 

The difference per box was $2.10, which was more 
than the profit could have been, and it would not 
need a prophet to tell what would be our fate. 

I urged that they do something to save the business 
over their road, for in so doing our business would be 
saved ; but it was useless. 

I further said that if I was at Provincetown I 
would put on a line of vessels and run the fish to 
Boston, as I had done before; bub I did not know 
what the shippers would do, as they were somewhat 
at variance. They did not do anything, and the 
business was ruined in less than two years. 

So the business of Atwood & Co. was nearly ruined 
by exorbitant freight rates and slow transit. The 
estimates of the injury which we received from those 
causes have been placed from eight to ten thousand 
dollars in the three years. 

The producers and shippers of the Cape lost the 
opportunity of making a good many thousand dollars, 
and the Old Colony suffered largely on that account. 

A rate of one dollar per box for transporting the 
fish would have yielded more profit to the company 
that $2.00 to $2.60, as that was nearly prohibitory, 

104 



and greatly reduced the volume of business done by 
the road. 

I know what the general freight agent said was the 
reason why they put the freight on that train, but as 
I have no witnesses I think it prudent not to mention 
it here. 

At a subsequent time, however, in the presence of 
witnesses, he gave another reason, which I valued 
very much. 

It was before the Railroad Commissioners, when 
I was contending for a night train and lower rates. 

Through our exertions and the suggestions and de- 
cisions of the Honorable Judge Russell, together with 
the Board of Railroad Commissioners, the Old Col- 
ony Railroad Company granted our request and put 
on a night freight train, which has been the means 
through which Cape Cod people have received a good 
many thousands of dollars more than they would have 
received under the arrangement of 1883. 

Therefore we feel satisfied on that point. It has 
been a good thing for Cape Cod producers and ship- 
pers, and they were well satisfied except in the mat- 
ter of unequal charges for freight, some paying from 
ten to fifty per cent, more than others, the lowest 
price having been made for the longest distance. 

We received many complaints and letters solicit- 
ing us to remedy this. Of course we knew who paid 
the highest and who paid the lowest, as we received 
fish from more than one hundred shippers over the 
Old Colony road. We applied for an equalization of 
rates by the urgent request of some of our patrons. 

We had two hearings before the railroad com- 

105 



missioners, but they decided in favor of the corpora- 
tion. 

The counsel for the company set up the plea that 
they had a right to charge what they pleased. Their 
depot masters would borrow scales and weigh a few 
packages and guess at the rest about all the season. 
In many instances they charged too much, but very 
seldom too little. 

We had the means of knowing whether the right 
weight was charged on the way bill or not. T 
suppose the gentleman set up his claim by the con- 
struction of chapter 225, acts of 1882, as there is no 
other statute law which in my opinion could be con- 
strued to justifiy such a claim. 

The two words "• undue " and '' unreasonable " do not 
come within my comprehension of the law. There- 
fore, I say, away with such outlandish terms 

Laws ought to be made so they can be understood 
by lawyers, if not by the people. 

I did not refer to either of the acts of 1882, for the 
reason that I was really ashamed of the last act, 
which was supposed to take the precedence; and I 
suppose the Honorable Judge Russell looked at it in 
that light, as he made no mention of either of the 
acts, but referred to section 190 of chapter 112, acts 
of 1874, every time he mentioned the statute laws. 

I must say I cannot agree with him in his decision, 
and think that section is somewhat complicated ; but 
how he could draw such conclusions from it is more 
than I can understand. 

Chapter 94 of 1882 is so plain that a man might 

106 



run and read and understand. That is what the 
people want. 

But it is policy for lawyers to liave it otherwise. 

I am for the people's rights, every time. 

Chapter 225 was not mentioned by the commis- 
sioners. It was the last act, and ought to have had 
the preference, had it been legal. 

I will tell you why. It Avas because it was used as a 
dark horse by the corporations to ride over the people, 
and Judge Russell must have considered it so, or he 
would have referred to it, because the judge knew that 
sectionl90 of chapter 112, acts of 1874, had been super- 
seded by chapter 91 of the acts of 1882 ; hence it was 
null and void as far as it related to discrimination in 
freight rates. Therefore his decision on discrimina- 
tion in the case of «Tohn Atwood versus the Old Col- 
ony liailroad Company has no Avarrant or standing in 
law, and the railroad commissioners must know it as 
well as I do. 

This was his excellency's decision in his inaugural 
address. He sustained my position. The whole 
scheme must have been concocted to deceive the peo- 
ple, for I hardly am prepared to say that any lawyer 
of Boston will contend that a dead letter law, or one 
that has been covered over by two subsequent acts, is 
still in force. 

Section 190 of chapter 112 is not as good as a last 
year's almanac as far as discrimination in freight 
rates is concerned. 

Let them face the music, and not go into antiquity 
and dig up sections of skeleton laws instead of using 



living ones. 



107 



If the legislators of 1882, who made two laws on 
the subject, one perfect, and honored the previous 
law with a fixed penalty, and subsequently made an- 
other which did not honor the previous law, and had 
no penalty affixed and w^as not definite — then, I ask, 
which could supersede (a query). 

It is all seen clearly by the eye of psychometry, by 
which I know all things I state to be true. 

I have in my possession two letters written to me 
previous to this contention by Judge Russell in 
answer to a question as to what constitutes discrim- 
ination on freight rates. 

The answer in both letters was just what I proved 
against the Old Colony Railroad Company before 
him, but he decided against his own knowledge and 
against his own decision, doubly given to me over 
his own signature. 

His motive for so doing I leave with you to decide. 

O, Almighty Dollar, what is there thou canst not 
do? 

We read in that sacred book from the best author- 
ity, if there is any diiference in that respect, "Thou 
art not thy own, but thou art bought with a price." 

That's a fact. 

I realize in my experience that every man has a 
price for his honesty and integrity. 

A very small price will buy some men. 



108 



CHAPTER XIV. 



,ANIEL gives you a dreamy account of Babylon 
and its kings, but it is not reliable. He takes 
a very round about way to do it, and relates many 
foolish dreams about all the beasts we can think of. 
He tells of their horns, great horns having little horns 
which were transformed into kings, and other such 
crazy dreams called the word of God in the Bible 
Creation, which I do not acknowledge. 

I will give you a few quotations, but I want you 
to read the whole book of Daniel as you would any 
other book, and then consider what a reliable witnes 
you have. 

He sa^^s of King Nebuchadnezzar that he was 
driven from men and ate grass as oxen, and his body 
was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were 
grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' 
claws, that he might know the Most High God ruleth 
in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever 
he will. 

Now God or gods had given everything to man 
long before Daniel's day, and Daniel makes his Lord 
God take the dominion that the gods gave unto the 

109 



Chaldeans, but this story was made to order, so it 
could end as the writer Avished like a novel. 

Now Daniel speaks of Helshazzar and says that he, 
Daniel, was namedby the king Beltishazzar. Who 
ever saw such foolish egotism. The idea that a great 
king of Babylon would call a wandering Jew slave 
for a Chaldean nobleman is so preposterous that it is 
silly if man was the author. 

But all through the Bible record names must be 
changed. All liars, thieves, murderers and wicked 
men have made a practice of changing their names 
from the time of Adam even until now. 

Well, we will give you a little more of Daniel and 
his story of the three Hebrew worthies, Shadrach, 
Meshack and Abednego, who were cast into the fiery 
furnace and came out unscorched, not even the smell 
of fire about their garments. (Wonderful.) 

And there is Daniel himself who was cast into the 
den of hungry lions, and after being there all night 
was not even scratched. (Wonderful, wonderful.) 

What a tremendous smart fellow this Daniel was. 
But it was all a dream. 

I wrote you about my brother fisherman, John, that 
good boy, and that the book of Revelations written 
by him was a Hebrew book, and not a Christian 
book, and that John had left them because he was 
ill-treated, and wrote the book of Revelations, con- 
demning them all except the few interpretations that 
served to make it excel except as a Ncav Testament 
book. As John had been one of them they could not 
afford to lose him. 

But I stated that the book was a book of the Old 



110 



Testament, as it gave internal evidence of that fact. 
But I will give you more evidence. It is almost an 
exact copy of part of tlie book of Daniel, and was 
copied from that book of dreams, and submitted to 
the seven synagagues in Asia, called Christian 
churches, but were not. Six hundred and sixty-six 
persons could not run seven churches. 

I know I repeat these sayings and references sev- 
eral times in my book, but you have been so long 
taught wrong in regard to Bible teachings that you 
require to have it forcibly impressed upon you. 

I have impressions which were made upon my 
mind when I was young that I know are wrong, but 
they frequently appear to me now. 



Ill 



CHAPTER XV. 



THERE are two through tracks to heaven. If 
my readers will go with me through this chap- 
ter I will introduce to them some of the theologies of 
the past and present, and demonstrate to them by 
the rule of three who the authors were and are. 

The theologies are many in branches, but I shall 
name only three, which will cover all the ground. 

And by the rule of trigonometry, the one true and 
positive part, I shall take the affirmative, and prove 
the two negatives untrue. 

This is not the common nor acknowledged form of 
discussion to-day. One affirmative and one negative 
is the order ; but I believe in progression, and that 
truth in the future must prevail. We must have 
three parts to make a square. 

The indication is that the time is coming when men 
will know more and be better than they are to-day, 
although to-day it is a great improvement upon the 
past, when false theology reigned triumphant. 

The question is: Resolved, That man's love for 
man is the best religion of this age ; and I John take 
the affirmative and introduce to my readers Abou 
Ben Adhem, the lover of his fellow-man. 

112 



When tlie angel of the Lord came around to see 
where the best man could be found, Abou asked 
the angel what he was searching for, and the angel 
replied tliat he sought those who loved the Lord. 
Abou then inqidred if his name was on the records as 
such, and when told that it was not he said to the 
angel, ''then Avrite me down as one who loves my 
fellow-man." 

Subsequently the angel came around to reward the 
blessed, when it was discovered that Abou Ben Ad- 
hems's name led all the i-est. 

This I term Abou Ben Adhemology, positive good. 
My opponents are two in this discussion, and they 
both claim the love of man toward God to be para- 
mount to all others, but Ave will see at the close of 
this discussion which of them will triumph. 

The tAvo theologies b}^ name are Peterology and 
Paulology, because they AA^ere the founders. And 
liere I give their doctrines as they proclaimed and 
taught and defended them. 

First, Peterology in as shellbark, with very little 
meat, mostly shell, like a school book (so it seems to 
me). 

Peter declared that he held the keys of the king- 
dom of heaA^en, Avhich Avere intrusted to his care, and 
that he was the only person Avho could open the door 
and admit or reject Avhomsoever he pleased, and that 
he had a right to appoint his successor and give him 
the keys; so the popes in succession are his vice- 
regents, and they can appoint whomsoever they Avill, 
and give them authority to ticket on a through train 
to heaven and check their baggage all Avho will take 

113 



their road and^pay for tlie ticket. So if they go on 
a tliroiigli train they are sure, and no freight train 
allowed on that track, which might wreck it. 

But stop there, says my other opponent. As Elihu 
said to Job and his friends, I have a word to say, too. 

Paul comes and takes the floor ajid says : ''I have 
another track laid through to heaven, with palace and 
sleeping cars, with every convenience, and will ticket 
you through without money and without price. I 
give you a free pass, but you must risk your baggage, 
if you have any ; but it is not necessary for joii to 
take any, as we provide you with everything you will 
need or can make use of on j^our passage. 

"'I, Paul, say that the other road is a humbug, and 
gotten up to extort money from the poor; and as 
your Great Teacher said, the poor you alwaj^s have 
with you, but I am not always with aou; he has dele- 
gated this doctrine to me, and so I delegate it to you, 
my followers. As I said to the Corinthians, so I say 
unto to you, the gospel of our Lord is free. Did I 
take anything of you for my services ? Did Timothy, 
my son, charge anything foi* his services? Free 
gospel. 

^' And now I declare unto you if any other man 
preaches unto you any other doctrine than I have 
declared unto you, let him be accursed. (That is, 
curse him.) Yea, if an angel come fmm lieaven and 
preach to you any other doctrine saA^e that I have 
preached, let him be accursed." (That is, curse him.) 

This seemed to be a settler for my first opponent, 
and I could sit and laugh to myself to seethose two eat 

114 



themselves as the famed Kilkenny eats did in the al- 
legory. 

But in this discussion my last opponent got the 
largest vote and was declared the winner later on. 

So I have now but one negative on the question. 
The first opponent claims the right to the floor, but 
he has been ruled out by an overwhelming vote. 

So I shall leave the Peterite, and attack the Paul- 
ology, and with the aid of my learned and wise and 
able friend, Joe Howard, the wise and good man, the 
writer of his love for man in the Sunday Globe, a 
man who tells the truth and shames the devil at all 
times and on all subjects. And no man dares or 
thinks himself able to oppose him. I know of no 
one who has had the determenation to do it. 

So my colleague in this discussion stands head and 
shoulders above every other writer on truth, humanity 
and the realization of this life. 

So I introduce to you Mr. Howard of the Sunday 
Globe, who takes his motto from David, Paul's great 
idol, whom he tej-ms a man after God's own heart, and 
says of that God: •' In my anger I said that all men 
are liars." (I wish to qualify this before Mr. How- 
ard opens. I presume that David meant that all 
men who proclaimed that there was a personal God 
outside of man were liars. So be it. So be it.) 

Now, this discussion will be finished with a few 
closing remarks by the opener. 

I am well acquainted with Paul, that is by what he 
says of himself and what his friends say of him. 

He has declared some truths, which have been re- 
ferred to in this work. And I am well acquainted 

115 



with many of Ms followers, and veiy excellent men 
some of them are, too. I would unhesitatingly be- 
lieve them when they speak concerning anything 
that is knowable ; but when they take wings as Paul 
did and fly off into space, looking for unknown gods 
— as Paul did to the Athenians at the great Aripa- 
gos at Mars Hill — then I let them go as the wise 
Athenians did Paul, as he seemed to like the voy- 
age. 

But now I take leave of Paul for a time and pay 
my respects to some of his followers. 

The great Spurgeon of England said in one of his 
sermons : " T have always considered that Jesus 
took the cup of wine in both of his hands, after the 
manner of the east and at one tremendous draught 
drank damnation dry." 

But I will come nearer home, so that you can verify 
my statements. I will quote from what Sam Jones 
called a sermon which he delivered in Boston. He 
took his text from, and a very unsavory text it 
was. It was from Paul's writings, and in his efforts 
to explain it he showed that he was as ignorant of it 
and of the character of the author as I am of the 
writings of Bob Dignay in his book called "Lalepi- 
lia," and I never read a word of it. 

His text was the thorn in Paul's flesh. He handled 
it seemingly as clumsily as a cow would handle a 
musket. I will not judge him and say he was a fool or 
a knave, but I will give you what he said in part as re- 
ported in the Boston papers, and leave you to judge. 
I will not give his argument in full, bat will say it 
^as foreign to the subject. 

116 



Ill the course of his remarks he stopped sud- 
denly and said: "I suppose you think I talk foolishly, 
but you must remember that it is a foolish audience 
that I am talking to." This being a sample you can 
judge Avhat the rest must have been. 

Perhaps it was true when applied to a part of his 
audience, for those who left their business, spent their 
time and money on Sam Jones, and listened to his 
vain babbling I think would fill the bill. 

But it seems to be the disposition of many to give 
credence to all that a reformed drunkard, who was 
picked up from the gutter, as he sa3^s he was, may 
say, and there is a class of persons who hug such 
men to their bosoms. 

Well, it may accord with their religion, but our 
folks don't like it. It is in keeping with Watts and 
Edwards. Dr. Watts says that while the lamp holds 
out to burn the vilest sinner may return. And some 
of the apostles declared that there Avas more joy in 
heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety 
and nine just persons who need no repentance. 

That is giving a license to do wrong and then re- 
pent ; take the benefit of the act, and escape all pun- 
ishment ; and then have ninety-nine honors to a good 
man's one. I say such preaching is disgusting to 
any good, honest, square kind of a man, 

I can see the reason why most of the convicts in 
our prisons are believers in this doctrine, and well 
they might be, as it ensures them such great profits 
from such investments, and figure largely on the laws 
of there being such great reward for their wick- 
edness, as there are plenty of priests ready to admin- 

117 



ister the unction and give tliem a ticket through to 
heaven. They make a speech on the scaffold before 
they are hanged, and then are swung off into heaven, 
where they are told will be great rejoicing. 

This is horrible in a country like ours, where its 
constitution locates its heaven here and now, and good 
men are its occupants, and the best men of the coun- 
try have the most honors, or ought to have. 

This false Peter and Paulology fills our prisons and 
asylums to overflowing, and is largely the cause that 
fills the suicide's grave. 

It is time that the voters of this beloved country 
should wake up and see their danger, and put their 
foot on the monster serpent whose fangs are bare, ready 
to sap the life blood of the nation. Treason in its 
worst form is allowed to stalk abroad. 

I know there are a few good men, true to their 
friends, who differ from them. They are true to 
every one and honest at heart, and I love them as 
men. But as they belong to a party they can't be 
true to themselves in an emergency and be sound on 
the goose, which means go for your party and church, 
right or wrong, and have no scruples about what is 
right or wrong here, individually. 

I hope the rulers of this country will see their dan- 
ger, and take warning, and realize that they live in 
the nineteenth century, and profit by the small 
Christian republics, and see that they fulfil the proph- 
ecies given in the New Testament. I am sorry to 
wound the feelings of my good friends, but the neces- 
sity is laid on me, and woe is me if I stifle the truth. 

The crisis is approaching. I shudder to think of 

118 



1 



it. The truth that Jesus is said to have declared is 
being fulfilled. '' I come not to bring peace, but the 
sword, and to set father against son, and son against 
father; mother against daughter, and daughter against 
mother, etc., etc." It is being fulfilled, in part, every 
day. 

O horrible, horrible. Horum, Croum, Planetorum, 
Plenevento. 

Tlie people are deceived. Deceived let them be. 
This is the ancient priests' motto. 

But I say unto the American people that we have 
in our constitution no visionary heaven or hell. 

And let us declare that all those who have made 
an agreement with liell in the distance to frighten the 
negative of our people to follow them that their 
agreement shall not stand in our free government of 
the people, by the people, and for the people. 



119 



CHAPTER XVI. 



BEGINNING with the second chapter of Genesis, 
or the generation of the heavens, we find a 
new heaven and a new earth, by an entire new au- 
thor. He testifies for himself, as follows: 

What is your name? 

Lord God. 

Wliere do you dwell? 

In the heavens. 

Did you create or make this earth and the heavens 
out of nothing? 

Yes. 

Did you plant a garden in the eastern part of Eden? 

Yes. 

Did you form man out of tlu^ dust of the ground 
and breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, and he 
became a living being, or soul ? 

Yes. 

Was he a dead soul before your breath was put 
into him? 

Yes. 



li^O 



Did you make man before you made vegetable or 
animal life? 

Yes. 

Did you make man of the male gender, and de- 
mand that he should, while alone, name all the plants, 
birds, fishes, and every species of animal before you 
created or made a woman for him? 

Yes. 

Did you tell the man after he had been operated 
upon, and a rib taken from him, that he had the lib- 
erty to eat from every tree in the garden except one ? 

Yes, I did. 

What was your object in keeping man more igno- 
rant than the beasts of the field, birds of the air, or 
fishes of the sea? They all know good from bad. 

I was afraid that if man could know good from evil, 
he, being in our image, would rebel, and there would 
be war in heaven, and it proved to be so, as is re- 
corded in my book of Revelations. 

Did you make the serpent? 

Yes. 

Don't you perceive that the serpent outwitted you 
and carried the day, and that Mother Eve and Father 
Adam are as young to-day as they ever were ; and in- 
stead of being the fruit of death it became the tree of 
life? 

Well, I dont see it in that light. 

You are stuck, and Satan has the best of the argu- 
ment this time. Why did you deliver two of your 
children, Philetus and Hymenseus, over to Satan, 
that he might teach them not to blaspheme? Were 

121 



you incompetent, or was the devil a better teacher 
for your children than you were. 

You make me angry. I will leave you. 

But stop. Be not indignant. I have a few more 
questions to ask. 

Go on. I have no time to answer wicked men's 
questions. 

Do you call me wicked because you cannot answer 
my questions ? Did the men and women really hide 
from you so you could not find them without halloa- 
ing for them? How could you be omnipresent and 
not know who told them that they were nak^d? 
Was Cain born a wicked man because his mother ate 
the sweet apple, and did you make Adam full grown 
at first, or did he grow up like other men? 

Then came this indignant reply : " O foolish man, 
what are you talking about ? I go. I am the Lord 
God." 

Well, good-by. I may meet you again, when I 
shall have other questions to propound. 

VF /fZ 7pr TfC 7|V T]^ tIn Tpr 

Good morning, Mr. Lord God, if thou art not in 
anger. 

Did you not curse the serpent because he beguiled 
the woman? 

Yes. 

Did the offence cause the woman to have children ? 

Yes. 

Did Eve bring forth Cain because of this wicked 
act? 

Yes. 

Did you quit gardening and throw the labor on 

122 



Adam, and make him sweat for a living because those 
parents were to have a family of children? Don't 
you perceive that that is the only way to keep the 
world populated? And your predecessor, the first 
creator, God (or gods), made all animate nature, 
male and female, and commanded them to multiply 
and replenish the earth. Did you want to live alone 
and make fools of Adam and Eve ? 

I won't answer any of your questions. 

Don't get angry. Good day. 

I will ask some of your prophets and inspired wise 
men concerning your acts towards your people. And 
then I will see if you continue in anger as I left you. 
Good-by. I shall challenge and cross-examine your 
witnesses as I think proper. 

******** 

I find the following quotation of scripture ready- 
made in Gore's " Rambler," with the prefix god 
or lord every time. This god, meaning the Israel- 
itish Lord God and not the Chaldeans' God mentioned 
in the light of reason while you are in running 
order and harmonize with that ever-present but 
invisible God and his sun. 

Now don't accuse me of stealing your God. I have 
not done it, unless you worship a phantom for a god, 
and if you do let him go ; he is not worth keeping. 
I would not harm you, dear reader, and if you are 
wedded to your idol, go on. I am satisfied after I 
have done my duty as a brother. 

Ephraim can have his own way and worship strange 
gods if he likes. 



123 



Here I append what the true birth should be, as 
given to the ladies of Boston, Dr. Landis said. 

The clippings I give you are such as wise men give 
to their hearers, but yon must not think it is all wis- 
dom. You will remember that Satan was the wise 
god, fully versed in the art of deception in the second 
creation. 

I submit a few questions for thinkers : 

Can any man be so foolish as to believe that there 
is a personal god outside of man and animals, with 
wisdom enough to discern good from evil ? 

There is but one reasonable conclusion to come to, 
and that is the one that Elder Snowball came to, that 
when God directed Rabbi Helchiah to pen the second 
creation as you have it he did not think that 
there would be any man fool enough to believe it 
true. There was the quail story, the dry dust story, 
the Jonah story, in fact all the crooked stories in the 
six books invented by that wicked Rabbi, aided by 
that arch lawyer, Phefan, making men live nearly a 
thousand years, so as to date their record ahead of 
other nations. < 

I wonder that Ave find men to-day dabbling in such 
silly stuff, but it has become the order of the day. 
And a man is considered a simple ignoramus or a 
wicked sinner if he don't conform to some one of 
those side issues; and if he does he has a few 
squeezed up ones Avithin him, and thousands of strong 
able-bodied men against him. A house divided 
against itself shall not stand, nor an agreement with 
hell avail them anything. 



124 



I submit the following clippings for thinkers : 

Would endless punishment be for the good of any 
human being ? 

If God loves his enemies, will he punish them any 
more than is for their good? 

If God loves his friends, if he loves his enemies 
also, is not mankind an object of his love? 

If God loves only those who love him, what better 
is he than any sinner ? 

As "love thinketh no evil," can God design the 
ultimate evil of a single soul ? 

If man does wrong in returning evil for evil would 
not God do wrong in doing the same thing? 

Would not endless punishment be a return of evil 
for good ? 

If God hates the sinner, would it not be natural 
for the sinner to hate him ? 

If God loves his enemis now, will he not always 
love them ? 

Would it be unjust in God to be kind to all men 
in a future state? 

If all men deserve endless punishment, will not 
those who are saved miss divine justice? 

Does divine justice require the infliction of pain 
from which mercy recoils? 

If God would save all men but cannot, is he infi- 
nite in his power? 

If God can save all men and will not, is he infinite 
in his goodness ? 

Did God desire universal salvation when he created 
men ? 

Will God carry his orignal designs into execution ? 

125 



Can God will anything contrary to his knowledge ? 

Did God know when he created man that a large 
portion of h.is creatures would be endlessly wretched? 

If he did not know all at the creation is he infinite 
in knoAvledge? 

If God made an endless hell, did he do so for the 
express purpose of burning men in it? 

If an angel be born a devil by sinning was Adam's 
the original sin? 

Woidd there be any more impropriety in imputing 
my sin to Adam than his to me? 

If men are totally depraved must not children be 
also? 

If children are totally depraved, how is it true 
"that of such is the kingdom of heaven?" 

Is it the revealed will of God that all men should 
be saved? 

Could God will that all men should be saved when 
he knew that many would be lost? 

If belief and good works are essential to salvation, 
how can infants be saved? 

Can he truly love God who worships him through 
fear of the devil? 

Can the love of God be changed to hatred ? 

Can the Deity be universally good, if endless pun. 
ishment is meted out to a single soul ? 

Can good men worship a being who has created 
millions for endless torture? 

Are those not the enemies of God who charge such 
conduct upon him ? 

Can it be virture to charge a good being with the 
most abominable characteristics? 



126 



If God made all things and knew all things ; if he 
made the Devil, knowing he would lead mankind 
astray, will it be just to punish mankind for it ? 

Would not a. being who would do this be as bad 
or worse than the Devil? 

If the Devil is the author of endless hell fire, would 
it not be the noblest thing God could do to put it 
out? 

If God created an endless hell before he created 
man, did he know there would be any use for it ? 

If God knew there Avould be any use for an end- 
less hell, must he have not created some men for end- 
less misery ? 

If God created an endless hell, was it included in 
the works he pronounced " very good?" 

If there be an endless hell, and it was not made 
before creation, when was it made ? 

If there be a personal Devil, who made him, and 
for what purpose was he made ? 

Can there be any such thing as sin in heaven ? 

If there Avas sin in heaven, and angels were cast 
out, may there not be sin in heaven again, and the 
present inhabitants be cast out ? 

As sin possesses temptation of some sort, who 
tempted a holy aiigel to sin? 

If an angel could sin Avithout a Devil to tempt him, 
may we not sin without a Devil to tempt us ? 

If a holy angel was tempted by surrounding evil, 
is heaven a holy place ? 

If an angel was tempted by evil passions could 
he have been holy ? 



127 



According to the records there were men who as 
pedestrians walked longer than any man can walk 
now. Enoch walked with the Lord three hundred 
years, got beat and died ; and God buried him (but 
did not put a tablet or monument at his grave, or 
even stick up a piece of board at his grave so that 
his friends could find the body). So says Helchiah, 
the Jewish rabbi, aided by Phefan, the scribe or 
lawyer. 

He got the first six books accepted as the word of 
God by that blessed youth who loved the Lord and 
sought the truth (King Josiah, a boy, eight years old), 
five books ascribed to Moses, one to Joshua. He wrote 
an account of his own death, but no evidence was 
given that his writings were true. Moses also wrote 
of his own death. 

Hence they stand with Joseph Smith's fifteen books 
of Mormon. I have read them thoroughly, and they 
don't compare in i-eason with " Gulliver's Travels," 
the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," "Baron Mun- 
chausen's Tales," or Mark Twain's book, " Roughing 
It." 

Making men to live nearly a thousand years was a 
shrewd trick to place the early records of the Israel- 
ites ahead of their time and give them great 
antiquity. 



128 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THAT Cliristiaiiity originated in Egypt about the 
year A. D. 1 there can be no reasonable doubt, 
and that the monks of Alexandria were the propa- 
gators is phiin to be seen, and they were not called 
Christians until near the end of the first century. 

They were first called Christians at Antioch by 
Theophilus Ignatius, the fanatic, a writer of many 
books of the New Testament and a large writer of 
the Apocraphy of the New Testament. 

Philo w^as a teacher in one department of that 
great school at Alexandria, and taught what he called 
the contemplative life, and had for his pupils 
Jesus of Nazareth and Judas of Tiberus in Galilee. 

You will find those boys connected somewhat in 
their youth, as given in the Apocraphy of the New^ 
Testament by Ignatius, as I have copied from that 
book. In it Judas is called the bad boy, but 1 will 
let you decide Avhich the bad boy is according to the 
records given. 

After they had finished their education Judas went 
to Tiberus and formed a new sect, called the smaller 
sect, of the Essenes, and drew many after him ; and 

129 



Jesus came and dwelt in Capernaum, four furlongs 
from Tiberus. Tliey joined hands in this social doc- 
trine, and Judas was to carry the bag of money, and 
they were to have all things in common. 

In regard to the future life they both taught the 
resurrection of the human body, but subsequently 
they disagreed and quarrelled about it, as Paul and 
Barnabas did about letting the old man John go to 
see his friends. 

Jesus proclaimed that the Jews would destroy the 
temple of his body and God would raise it up again in 
three days ; but Judas disputed it, and said by Avay of 
evidence that bodies had been embalmed by the 
thousands for more than a thousand years, and not 
one had been raised, and never would be until the 
resurrection day, which would be at the closing of 
human life on this earth, which was to be at the end- 
ing of that generation ; and if their policy could have 
been carried out and no children had been born after 
that generation tlie first part of the prophecy would 
have been fulfilled more than a thousand years ago. 

But the raising of all those dead bodies would have 
been another matter over which the priests could 
have had no control. Although they had promised 
them another individual life, they would never get it. 

For the truth of what I have written look into 
your Bible, and read what Jesus says at the supper 
table. He says : ''You twelve have I chosen, and one 
of you hath a devil (that is, he opposes me)." That 
made Peter nervous, and he asked: "Who is if^" and 
Jesus replied : "He that dips sop with me in the 
same dish shall betray me." 

130 



Then Judas threw down the bag of money and left 
the clan of Apostles and never associated with them 



again. 



This was no betrayal. It was Peter who betrayed 
his Master when he was set as a watch to look out 
for their enemies, the Jews, as they had disobeyed 
the Jewish laws, and if caught he would be crucified. 
That they knew. 

But Peter, that slee|3y fisherman, would not keep 
awake, not even one hour, nor keep his men awake 
when danger was so nigh. Shame on him ! It was 
the worst act 1 ever knew a fisherman to do And 
than he ran off after betraying his Master by his 
negligence aud denied him, and cursed and swore 
and lied, and said he did not know" him. (Outrageous.) 

He was a pretty fellow to establish the Christian 
church on and give the keys of the kingdom of heaven 
to, and let him shut out whomsoever he pleased. 

Verily ! Verily ! Verily ! The New Testament 
is a wonder. I am giving you a sketch of the early 
authors of what is called Qhristianity, but Christi- 
anity to-day is different. It is claimed to be justice, 
goodness and virtue. If those be its attributes they 
had better drop such characters as the founders of 
Christianity were, and be good on their own merits 
and not depend on Jesus, Peter and Paul for their 
salvation. 

I think this is enough to show the origin of Chris- 
tianity. 

And now for the establishment and promulgators of 
it. It was established in Rome, in the year 312 of the 
Christian era by that wicked emperor, Constantine," 

131 



who abolished paganism and established Christianity, 
and set himself up as the first pope successor to 
Peter. 

Some writers say he called a convention at Nice, 
in the province of Bothnia, in 325 ; but others say it 
was in 327, which I think was the more probable, as 
he had the queen's mother put to death in 325, his own 
son, 326 A. D. He was a slayer of men, women and 
children. 

The Nicene synod was called to prefer a charge of 
heresy against one Ariast who had dissented from the 
true faith of the constansebelness of God and the 
equality of Christ, and they discussed the question 
seven days, Constantine, sitting as chairman, on the 
throne. At the end of seven days, the discussion be- 
ing ended, the question was put and one hundred and 
nineteen votes were thrown on each side, thus giving 
Constantine the deciding vote. 

This was the establishing of Christianity, and with 
it a big quarrel ; and they have continued to quarrel 
ever since. They are like the sea ; they continue to 
cast up mud and dirt. 

Well, Ariast was defeated and became an outcast, 
with all his followers, except those who recanted and, 
embraced the true faith, as he called it. 

Then Constantine saw the necessity of having a 
constitution and by-laws to guide his priests, as they 
had spread over many nations. So he selected the 
most prominent of them in every city to draft a 
constitution and by-laws. 

They were to take the history of Josephus and 

132 



Pliilo and write out from tlie antiquity of the Jews a 
book to be called tlie Old Testament. 

And from Joseplius' wars of the Jews. 

And Pliilo's history, called the "Contemplative Life," 
a book to be called the New Testament. 

And all the priests who had no appointment were 
to have access to the written manuscripts to make 
whatever remarks they might think proper, to be 
calletl the Apocraphy to the Old and New Testament. 

This is proved by the writers of the Apocraphy to 
the Old Testament referring to and explaining books 
that do not appear in the Bible. 

My father said they were lost, but the fact is that 
they were not accepted by the council which met at 
Trent in 368 and decided by a vote what books should 
be called the Word of God. They would have done 
better had they rejected more than they did, especially 
the six books attributed to Moses and Joshua, 
written by Rabbi Helechiah ; all but the first chap- 
ter of Genesis, which precedes the jumbling six books 
that make men live nearly a thousand years, so that 
they could date further back into antiquity. 

There is no sane person to-day who does not know 
that human beings were not built in a manner that 
they could prolong life to that extent on this earth. 

At the time Jacob went down into Egypt men lived 
at the longest only one hundred and thirty years, as 
I have stated in other parts of this book. 

Judaism originated in Egypt as well as Christi- 
anity, so all the resurrections of the dead refer to the 
resurrection of the human body of flesh and blood 
until Paul's time, and nearly all the Israelites believed 

133 



this earth was the heayen and the new Jerusalem was 
to be built here, and the Jews have talked about pur- 
chasing the Holy Land and building the new Jeru- 
salem there. 

I take the ancient history for just what it is worth 
to-day. 

I will make a few remarks on Dr. Abbott's lecture 
on Christianity and Evolution. He is a profound 
Orthodox, a learned man, and is very liberal for one 
of that faith. I shall refer to his lecture on Evolution 
and Science. He is mostly right, and such talk will 
soon break the Orthodox boom. 

But to his definition of Christianity I shall take 
some exceptions. I am a simple fisherman, but he 
must remember it was the ignorant fishermen of 
Galilee who put out the eyes of the philosophers and 
and learned men of their time, and as they have ruled 
Christianity since then if they have made no progress 
in science, so much the worse for Christianity. 

Dr. Abbott says Christianity is civilized paganism. 
This is only half of the truth. Uncivilized Judaism 
is the other half, as I have told you. 

And he speaks of "human ignorance in Jesus of 
Nazareth." How does he know that Jesus was 
ignorant ? Who told him this ? 

He acknowledges that all the Bible is not true. 
He must be careful, or I shall get him where I have 
got many preachers stuck. 

I have told you in this history of the origin of 
Christianity that Jesus was educated in Egypt, a 
pupil of Philo, with Judas of Galilee. 

J must give you a little history older and truer than 

134 



his Bible. JovSeplms said of Jesus that he came from 
Egypt, was a smart man, far surpassing all other men. 
He called him the Egypti/tn false prophet and said 
that he went down to the seacoast of Tiberus and en- 
listed an army of several thousand of men of the lower 
grade, ignorant fishermen, common laborers, out- 
laws. (There was a multitude of them in and about 
Tiberus.) 

He marched a part of his army up to the Mount of 
Olives, and there he proclaimed to them that he was 
sent of God, that he had a divine mission, which was 
to free the Jews from the Romans and become their 
King. 

He enthused the array and led them on and attacked 
the Romans, but was defeated and ran away, em- 
barked on a ship and escaped, but was subsequently 
caught, as I have described, and was executed, a'^ it 
was proved that he had rebelled against the Romans, 
and claimed to be the Shilo, which so exasperated the 
Jews that they clamored for his blood and would have 
him crucified. 

They were very religious after their kind. 

I was talking with a very pious gentleman recently, 
and while speaking of Josephus he said it was a pity 
that he did not say more about Jesus than he did. 
He said it Avas great evidence for Christianity that he 
wrote what he did, referring to the eighteenth book 
of the '' Antiquities of the Jews," third chapter, third 
verse, which is an entire interpolation. Il breaks up 
the chain of connecting motives, and exposes the 
fraud, and then states that Josephus wrote that Jesus 

135 



was the Christ and did come back, and ate and drank 
with his disciples. 

Only think that a Jew, and a priest at that, should 
acknowledge that impossibility, and write so much 
more after that and still be a Jew, and die in the faith. 

I pity any man who is so blinded that he can't see 
such gross fraud because it seemed to favor his mis- 
taken views. 

I was taught during the first twenty years of my 
life by very learned preachers that my soul was not 
my own. So they preached, but I heard another 
more satisfactory idea. The preacher said I was not 
my own, but had been bought with a pi-ice. And he 
told what the price was tliat had been paid. 

I found and believed that my Lord was in the slave 
trade, and I was his slave, and when I ended this life 
would have nothing to do but to sing. I was happy 
then, because I did not like to work so hard and fare 
so hard. 

That' was a very good doctrine. It made fair 
weather and a haj)py arrival in port at last- 

I advise all my friends who think they must have 
some kind of religion to embrace it ; not that it is 
any more true than any other, but, wliat is better, 
I have tried it and can vouch for It every time. 



136 



CHAPTER XVIIT. 



IT is now Christmas, and we find Jesus saying unto 
the Pharisees: "Your father Abraham rejoiced 
to see my day (December 25); he saw it, and was 
glad. So I say unto my readers that John, the be- 
loved disciple, rejoiced to see my day (December 26); 
he saw it, and w^as glad. The jury had agreed. 

John was a good boy, and Jesus loved him for his 
good qualities. Think you that he would have trust- 
ed his mother in his hands for life if he had not been 
good. John was conservative, and never committed 
any overt act ; but he was cruelly treated by Paul 
and his followers becuse he would not go to all their 
revival meetings. 

John was then an old man and did not relish so 
much excitement. But he had one friend who 
possessed power, Barnabas, who declared that 
the old man John Mark should go up to Jerusalem 
with them to visit their friends. 

But Paul declared that he should not. So they had 
a sharp quarrel, and separated. Paul took Silas, and 
they went their own way. 

But Barnabas took Mark, whose Christian name 
was John, and then John got so disgusted with Paul 

137 



and liis clan, the Nicolatanes, that he left them and 
went to Ephesus and declaimed against them in the 
seven synagogues. 

The churches were not Christian churches, as you 
have been told, as there were 666 of the Nicolatanes 
who had received the mark of that beast in their 
foreheads and in their right hands, and his name or 
the number of his name. 

Now don't for one minute think that six hundred 
three score and six people could run seven Christian 
churches in seven different cities in Asia. John says 
that was the number, and he was there, and had been 
one of them, and ought to know, and he knew. 

But when Paul heard what John was doing (he was 
then preaching to that great church at Corinth for the 
the first decade) he went to Ephesus and preferred a 
charge against John, and took him before the court, 
and summonsed the Nicolatanes of Ephesus 
and Pergemos, and proved John guilty of the charge, 
and had him sentenced to the isle of Patmos. 

Now you are aware that ministers and good men 
who belonged to any clan were called angels. And 
any who differed from them were called beasts. 
Hence John called Paul a beast, and Paul called 
John a beast. Don't wonder. All learned men of 
any note know what I am writing is true. 

Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, when 
he was begging a reinstatement as preacher, in the 
fifteenth chapter : "If, after the manner of men, I have 
fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it 
to me if the dead raise not?" 

Our great light and explorer of the Holy J^and 

138 



makes out Paul to be a pugilist or a gladiator, who 
went to Ephesus and fought with wild beasts. But 
where does he get his evidence ? Surely not from 
the records. 

Paul never was trained as a gladiator. So the 
explorer's theory blows to the Avind, where the 
Avhangdoodles go and the screech owls make their 
nests. Their profound reverence to such men. 

But let them be a little careful how they dabble 
with what they call sacred history without the 
proper opportunities to know truth from error. 

I am not writing here a history of the book of 
Revelations, but positively say that it is not a book of 
the New Testament, and should not have been placed 
there, and was not considered as one for many years 
until it was changed, having nine verses prefixed and 
several interpolations made. 

And I only write this much to defend the good man 
John's character now he is dead. He received enough 
abuse from his ought-to-be friends, but many were 
not above taking his thunder which he hurled 
against them, and turning it against him, when he 
honestly intended it for them. 

It is a great mistake for the credibility of the New 
Testament that the book of Revelations was added 
to it, as it is a Jewish record altogether, except the 
few alterations which are so glaring and self-evident 
that John never wrote them. They were fathered 
upon him by designing men, who wanted to have the 
book attached to the New Testament, as they had 
become ashamed of the Apocraphy which was then a 
part of the work. So the change was made. 

139 



You are aware tliat the book is composed of many 
books, by many writers. 

But there are only four grand divisions, and they 
are the Old Testament and its Apocraphy, and the 
New Testament and its Apocraphy. 

So YOU have but half of the orimnal, now in use, 
but that is enough, and more than you can understand. 

There is so much Bible printed to-day that the 
23eople cannot get along without quarrelling about it. 

The more people know about it the more they 
quarrel about it. It has always been so, and probably 
it always will be so. 

But most men to-day know but little about it, and 
it is well it is so ; and the}^ care still less, which is to 

their credit. 

The earth still moves, and progression is still alive. 
God is ever present and distributes his glorious 
blessino^s broadcast with his hosts of ans^els in atteud- 
ance. He has never forsaken his children, and he 
never will. No matter how many croakers there are 
around, he showers down his blessings all the same. 



140 



i 



CHAPTER XIX. 



I 



THAT such a record should be copied by men 
blessed with sufficient sense to enable them to 
discern falsehood is surprising to me, and I think there 
are many whose reason is undeveloped in scripture. 

If you should ask them some questions, like a few 
which I will name, they would be unable to answer 
you. 

Here are some of the questions: 

Which book of the Bible tells where God came 
from ? 

Who Avas the first man to commit murder ? 

What was the character of the house that God 
spared when Joshua took Jericho ? 

Or ask them about the characters of Abraham, 
Isaac, Jacob, Esau or Judah. They can't or won't 
tell you. 

Ask them what they think of Solomon or David 
as moral men, and they are mum. 

To all similar questions, mum is the word. 

Ask them who kept a woman in Damascus in a 
house near the wall, and was three times whipped 

141 



and twice put in prison for his loose and lewd con- 
duct and example. 

And than ask them who killed Ananias and 
Sapphira, according to the witnesses given in the 
book. 

Then asked who lied, cursed, swore and denied his 
best friend. 

Shame on him ! This was the worst thing I ever 
knew a fisherman to do. 

But he had left his old trade, and was fishing for 
men, and he caught many. 

Then ask what book tells who cast out devils by 
the power of devils, or deception. 

And what book says that our Lord was crucified 
in Egypt. They all seem to know that he was cinici- 
fied on Mount Calvary. None of us were there. 

David, a man after God's own heart, tells us that 
God said in his anger that all men were liars. 

And Paul says, " If through my lie the grace of 
God abounds, why should I be called a sinner, or 
why should I be called a liar?" 

Paul was a droll dog, as men would say. Once I 
thought he was goody goody, huuky dory, and I 
could swallow him without greasing or using any 
gravy, speaking after the manner of men. But, then, 
I did not know him as I do now. 

Since then I have been initiated into the rights and 
mysteries whereby we know each other. 

I thank heaven or the gods for that fine nerve that 
gives me power to discern good from evil. I was 
born a know-nothing; that is, I did not know any- 
thing that I know now. 

142 



In my pilgrimage I have met men who seem to 
have no nerve or sense of feeling. 

When I was a voun(y man and had nothino- to do 
on windy days (I was a fisherman, and windy days 
were leisure days) I went around and soldered 
pipes or fixed pumps, not as a hireling, but free 
work. It was not my trade. 

On one occasion I was soldering for one of my 
neighbors. He Avas one of those men who have no 
nerve. The hot solder dropped on the floor. He 
quickly picked it up between his thumb and finger 
and put it on the pipe where it belonged. 

I shouted to him when I saw what he was doing. 
He squeezed the melted solder flat to hold it while 
takino- it from the floor. He said it did not burn 
him. 

I think I felt more pain than he did. 

I am describing the difference between men of feel- 
ing and those without it. 

I once knew a man who was so negative that he 
really had no mind of his own, but did generally 
what he saw others do ; yet he was a good sort of a man, 
capable, and smart when he had a leader. 

Old men who are negative shake without wishing 
to do so. It is called paralysis, but it is really nega- 
tiveness, no true nerve to steer the ship. 

This man whom I describe lost the proper use or 
controlling power of his legs, that is, he could not 
control them, and they would run away with him 
sometimes when he was in the street and carry him 
where he did not want to go, and he sometimes had 

143 



to catch hold of a fence to stop himself. Marvel not 
It is true. 

He did not live to be very old. He died sometime 
during the sixties. 

Some year or more before he died I called to see 
him one evening. He was sociable and glad to see 
me, as one Avould say. I held a lighted lamp near 
his eyes, and asked him if he observed any difference 
or could see that there was a light near him. He said 
he did not. 

I felt sorry for and pitied him. 

The foregoing is true to the letter. 

I attach no blame to liim. It was in accordance 
with his organization. Yet liad he known his weak- 
ness in that direction he might in some measure have 
avoided so early a calamity. 

I assure the friends of this man that I have the 
best of feelings towards him and all his relatives, 
always have had, and therefore do not give his 
name. 

I met a friend some years ago and asked him how he 
was feeling, and he replied : " Bad. I gave up my 
business nine years ago, and have done nothing but 
shake since." 

As this is a delicate matter to write on I will say 
here and now that it is the mind that sees through 
the optic nerve. By the abuse of the optic nerve men 
become blind before their time. I realize this in my 
own experience, as well as by observation. 

Although I am writing now at the age of eighty I 
have nearly lost the sight of my right eye, caused by 
so much reading by lamp light during the past fall 

144 



and winter, devoting between three and four hours 
nearly every evening to reading. I am now deter- 
mined not to read so much evenings hereafter. 

Some of my religious friends say the Lord has eyes 
to give to the blind, but he does not give them to old 
men and women. So my advice to you is to take 
good care of your eyes and not depend upon the Lord 
giving you others, should you ever be so unfortunate 
as to need them. 

He does not give two pair of eyes to one person, no 
more then he does two lives two one person, and that 
is impossible, no matter what we may think or dream 
concerning the theory. 

I think I have given you the philosophy of life and 
death in a previous chapter. It is a fine point to talk 
about, two existences for one thing, or two lives for 
one person. Such foolish stuff has caused more 
wickedness and misery than all other causes put 
together. 

Before we existed as individual beings we were a 
part of the earth, earthy. And now that we live and 
have an organized brain, we have become a part of 
the heavens, and are heavenly ; with more omniscience 
or wisdom than any other living being, a complete 
microcosm, a living, positive proof that we were once 
dead matter, as it were, and shall be so again. 

This proves my theory of the problem of one 
positive of the triune square, giving the other two, 
and cannot be successfully disputed ; and that proves 
the one positive, as this proves one life and two deaths ; 
and all who live have their part in the first resur- 
rection. On such the second death cannot have any 

145 



power, as I have stated in other parts of this book. 
I repeat it. 

This is a very important part, and worth more to 
all my readers to know the truth and comprehend it 
than to know all about dreams, phantoms, imaginary 
spirits flying around. 

Faith in things visionary has led men astray for 
thousands of years, and it is a wonder that people 
are as good as they are, after being kept in ignorance 
so long and taught what they cannot comprehend; 
and if it were not for our human laws no good people 
could live on this earth. 

The misunderstanding of God's laws, is a serious 
matter. Every evil person has his own imaginary 
god, and would kill every other person who would 
not conform to his religion. 

Don't marvel. Even our Puritans, as they were 
called, were so religious they did it. 

Evil would reign triumphant if the god men had 
the power. Human law checks them. 



146 



CHAPTER XX. 



I WILL add a few words to what I have said in 
other parts of this work, and give some ideas 
formulated by the great correspondent, Joseph 
Howard, Jr., as given in a letter written by him and 
printed in the Sunday Globe of January 10, 1892. 

He enumerates a few of the many changes which 
may and probably will occur during the succeeding 
half century, and recapitulates some of the many dis- 
coveries made within the closing half century. 

You can smile at some things I have told you of 
my own experience and cry " humbug," but that has 
been done since the making of history begun. • 

But I will tell you some things you know to be 
true. There are clairvoyants who pretend to go into 
a trance and see many things at a distance. That is 
a dreamy state or condition of the cerebellum, operat- 
ing on an unconscious mind. 

There are somnambulists, both men and women, 
who have got up out of their beds and walked in 
very dangerous places, and even returned home and 

147 



gone to bed without knowing that they had been out. 

There are people who walk in their sleep at times, 
and you know it to be so. Therefore it is useless to 
resort to that old and familiar cry of " humbug" now. 

The somnambulist does actually do and perform 
such acts by the aid of the cerebellum without the 
knowledge of the cerebrum. 

This is just what I have told you repeatedly, that 
the instincts of the back brain could see without the 
aid of the optic nerve of intelligence, and where both 
are combined and controlled by the intelligence then 
both can be used for the benefit of mankind. 

You will probably resort to the old shibboleth, and 
cry "humbug" again. Well, go on. All right. 

We have a god given right to know as much as 
the animals and birds, and they know all I have 
claimed to know. 

Men will come in the twentieth century and prob- 
ably laugh at our ignoranc^e as we laugh at the follies 
of those who have gone before us. 

Now I give you Mr. Howard's prognostications : 

" New Yoek, Jan. 9 — What a bully place to live 
in this Avorld will be fifty years from now. 

" And yet — 

"Oh, there is always a yet^and a but and an if* 
Isn't it odd. Of the half-million people who will 
read this letter to-morrow, very few can remember 50 
years back, and doubtless scores of thousands will 
enjoy the millennial period of which I speak only 50 
years from date. Fifty years ago there were no rail- 
ways, no telegraph communications, no telephones, 
no street railways, no elevated roads, very few steam- 

148 



boats, no steamships of any consequence, no gas for 
illuminating purposes, no domestic utilization of the 
marvellous force, electricity. 

"What of it? 

" Well, this. If fifty years ago one had predicted 
that in 1892 we could cross the ocean in six days ; 
could communicate with the farther ends of the globe 
by wire ; could literally talk with friends in Chicago ; 
we in Boston or New York could communicate with 
business people in London and receive an answer 
within the hour ; could go from here to Boston in six 
hours, in cars brilliantly illuminated by electric fluid, 
turned on or off as water is made to flow or stop, he 
would have been regarded a lunatic. 

" Now, it is impossible for us to conceive what im- 
provements there are ahead of us, precisely as it was 
for them to forecast the marvellous advantages which 
you and I enjoy and think nothing of. 

" Custom is everything. 

" Our churches are opened to rich, and virtually 
closed against the poor. It is all nonsense to say 
that Christian charity welcomes every man, no matter 
what his garb, and that ordinary decency furnishes 
every woman a seat, no matter about her hat. Come 
with me to our great churches on our principal 
avenues and I will find you rudeness emphasized, dis- 
courtesy exaggerated. From the surpliced parson in 
his little box to the swollen, paunched sexton in the 

vestibule, there is a feeling, ' I am holier than thou.' 
"Why? 

" Because my clothes cost more. 

" Don't deny it. It is, I know it ; you see it, you 

149 



know it, and it is there, it seems to me, where an im- 
proyement ought to begin. 

" It is in these public places, conspicuous by their 
flagrant disregard of the first principle of Christianity. 
' Do unto others as you would have others do unto 
you,' that the improvemejit should be begun. 

" However, in this 50 years from now, when my 
obituary will be a thing of the long past, and you 
young people will be the force and factors, there will 
be developed by art and science and inventive in- 
genuity improvements over the physical aids and 
abetments we enjoy as marked as these are an im- 
provement and an advance over the crudities and dis- 
comforts of the past. One is almost tempted to believe 
that the fable story of the Persian carpet may come 
true, when, stepping upon a rug of small dimensions, a 
simple wish will transport the owner to any desired 
part of the earth. 

" Every man will unquestionably have his electric- 
push wagon, his flying-machine, his favorite balloon, 
his mode of communicating with Tom, Dick and 
Harry, not to mention Sarah, Mary and Jane, 
and to men who study mental phenomena it won't 
seem particularly odd if, in that not so very remote 
period, men can read each other's thoughts. 

" That, by the way, is not such a wonderful devel- 
opment after all. 

" We understand our children, we read the little 
fellow's mind. Putting this and that together, we 
don't have to read his countenance to know what he 
wants, what he is thinking, up to a certain point, so, 
as compared with the advance made in telegraphy 

150 



with the wonderful conveniences placed in the hands 
of our great organization by the Edi sonic intellect, 
making a progress from the rude, crude mechanisms 
of 30 years, the studying, the reading and the clean 
cut apprehension of the minds of our fellows will not 
be such a wonderful indication of creative ability after 
all. 

" I should hate to have some people know just 
what I think of them, because a catastrophe would 
result, but I am now talking of 50 years from now, 
when neither they nor I will have much to say 
about the affairs of the mundane sphere." 



151 



CHAPTER XXI. 



PROMETHEUS was a deity who united the 
divine and human nature in one person, and 
was confessedly ^^ both God and man " — perfect God 
and perfect man, of a reasonable and human flesh sub- 
sisting ; equal to the father as touching his godhead, 
but inferior to the father as touching his manhood ; 
who, although he was God and man, yet was he not 
two, but one Prometheus ; one, not by conversion of 
the godhead into flesh, but by taking the manhood into 
God ; one altogether, not by confusion of substance, 
but by unity of person; for as the reasonable soul 
and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Prome- 
theus; who, for us men and our salvation, came down 
from heaven, and was incarnate, and was made man, 
and was crucified also for us, under force and strength ; 
he suffered, and descended into hell, rose again from 
the dead, he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the 
right hand of the Father, God Almighty. 

Thus far the Pagan and the Christian credenda ran 
hand in hand together ; and it is a more than striking 
coincidence that the name Prometheus should be 



152 



directly synonymous with the Logos, or Word of 
God, an epithet applied by St. John to the God and 
man or demi-deity of the Gospel, from before-hand, 
and care, or council ; hence directly signifying the 
Christian deity. Providence, which we see emblemized 
as an eye surrounded with rays of glory, and casting 
its beams of light upon the affairs of our world. 
Indeed, under this designation, he continues to this 
day a more fashionable deity than the Logos of St. 
John. We find acknowlegdments of dependence on 
Divine Providence, and the blessing of Providence, or 
Prometheus, spoken of in our British parliament, 
occurring in his majesty's speeches, and received with 
the most respectful sentiment from one end of the 
kingdom to the other, where the introduction of the 
name of Jesus Christ, in the place of that of Prome- 
theus or Providence, would be received with an 
universal smirk of undisguised contempt. 

The best information of the character, attributes, 
and actions of this deity, is to be derived from the 
beautiful tragedy of Prometheus Bound, of ^schylus, 
which was acted in the theatre of Athens, 500 years 
before the Christian era, and is by many considered 
to be the most ancient dramatic poem now in 
existence. The plot was derived from materials even 
at thiit time of an infinitely remote antiquity. 
Nothing was ever so exquisitely calculated to work 
upon the feelings of the spectator. No author ever 
displayed greater powers of poetry, with equal strength 
of judgment, in supporting through the piece the 
august character of the divine sufferer. The spectators 
themselves were unconsciously made a party to the 

153 



interest of the scene ; its hero Avas their friend, their 
benefactor, their creator, and their saviour ; his wrongs 
were incurred in their quarrel — his sorrows were 
endured for their salvation ; "he was wounded for 
their transgressions, and braised for their iniquities ; 
the chastisement of their peace was upon him, and 
by his stripes they were healed." (Isaiah, liii., 5.) 
" He was oppressed and afflicted, yeL he opened not 
his mouth." The majesty of his silence, whilst the 
ministers of an offended God were nailing him by the 
hands and feet to Mount Caucasus, could be only 
equalled by the modesty with which he relates, while 
hanging on the cross, his services to the human race, 
which had brought on him that horrible crucifixion: — 

" I will speak. 
Not as upbraiding them, but my own gifts 
Commending. 'Twas I who brought sweet hope 
T' inhabit in their hearts — I brought 
The fire of heaven to animate their clay ; 
And through the clouds of barbarous ignorance 
Diffused the beams of knowledge. In a word, 
Prometheus taught each useful art to man." 

In answer to a call made on him, to explain how 
his philanthropy could have incurred such a terrible 
punishment, he proceeds : — 

"See what, a god, I suffer from the gods ! 
For mercy to mankind, I am not deemed 
Worthy of mercy ; but in this uncouth 
Appointment, am fixed here, 
A spectacle dishonorable to Jove ! 

154 



On {he throne of heaven scarce was he seated, 
On the powers of heaven 
He showered his various benefits, thereby 
Confirming his sovereignty ; but for unhappy mortals 
Had no regard, but all the present race 
Willed to extirpate, and to form anew. 
None, save myself, opposed his will. I dared. 
And boldly pleading, saved them from destruction — 
Saved them from sinking to the realms of night ; 
For which offence, I bovr beneath these pains. 
Dreadful to suffer, piteous to behold !" 

In the catastrophe of the plot, his especially pro- 
fessed friend, Oceanus, the Fisherman, as his name 
Petrseus indicates (Petrseus was an interchangeable 
synonyme of the name Oceanus), being unable to 
prevail on him to make his peace with Jupiter, by 
throwing the cause of human redemption out of his 
hands, " forsook him and fled." None remained to be 
witnesses of his dying agonies, but the chorus of ever 
amiable and and ever-faithful women which also 
bewailed and lamented him (Luke, xxiii., 27), but 
were unable to subdue his inflexible philanthropy. 
Overcome at length by the intensity of his pains, 
he curses Jupiter in language hardly different in 
terms, and but little inferior in sublimity to the "Eloi, 
Eloi, lama sabacthani !" of the Gospel. And im- 
mediately the whole frame of nature became con- 
vulsed ; the earth shook, the rocks rent, the graves 
were opened ; and, in a storm that seemed to threaten 
the dissolution of the universe, the curtain fell on the 
sublimest scene ever presented to the contemplation 

155 ' 



of the human eye — a dying God ! The Christian 
muse has inspired our modern poets with no strains 
on this theme, but such as bear the character of 
plagiarism, parody, or paraphrase on the Greek trag- 
edy. A worshipper of Prometheus would look in vain 
through all our collections of sacred poetry for a 
single idea which his own forms of piety had not 
suggested, or a single phrase whose reference would 
not seem to him, to have as direct an application to 
the god-man of JEschylus, as to the Jesus of the 
Evangelists : 

" Lo, streaming from the fatal tree. 

His all-atoning blood I 
Is this the infinite? 'Twas he — 

Prometheus, and a God ! 
Well might the sun in darkness hide, 

And veil his glories in. 
When God, the great Prometheus, died. 

For man, the creature's sin." 

The preternatural darkness which attended the 
crucifixion of Prometheus was natural enough as 
exhibited on the stage, and is beautifully described in 
the language of the tragedy. Nor is there any 
difiiculty in conceiving, that when the might}^ eifect 
of so deep a tragedy on the feelings and sentiments of 
the audience became an inexhaustible source of 
wealth to the performers, there would be found those 
who would be shrewd enough to discover the policy 
of enhancing and perpetuating so profitable an im- 
pression on the vulgar mind, by maintaining that 

156 



there was much more than a mere show in the 
business ; that it was an exhibition of circumstances 
that had really happened ; that Prometehus was a real 
personage and had actually done, and suffered, and 
spoken as in so lively a manner had been set before 
them ; that the tragedy was a gospel put into metre ; 
and that nothing but " an evil heart of unbelief " 
could induce any man to doubt ''the certainty of those 
things wherein he had been instructed." It is probably 
no more than a figure of speech, though certainly 
very injudiciously chosen, in which Origen calls the 
crucifixion of Christ the most awful tragedy that was 
ever acted. 

But the pretence of the reality of the event would 
break down, in the judgment of the better-informed, 
from the total want of evidence to support that part 
of the detail, which, had it been real, could not have 
wanted the clearest and most constraining demonstra- 
tion. The darkness which closed the scene on the 
Prometheus, was easily exhibited on the stage, by 
putting out the lamps ; but when the tragedy was to 
become history, and the fiction to be turned into fact, 
the lamp of day could not be easily disposed of. Nor 
can it be denied that the miraculous darkness which 
the Evangelists so solemnly declared to have attended 
the crucifixion of Christ, labors under precisely the 
same fatality of an absolute and total want of evidence. 

Gibbon, in his usual strain of scarcasm and irony, 
keenly asks, "How shall we excuse the supine inat- 
tention of the pagan and philosophic world to those 
evidences which were presented by the hand of 
Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? 

157 



This miraculous event, wliich ought to have excited 
the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of man- 
kind, passed without notice in an age of science and 
history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca 
and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the 
immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence 
of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a 
laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena 
of nature — earthquakes, meteors, comets and eclipses, 
which his indefatigable curiosity could collect ; both 
the one and the other have omitted to mention the 
greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has 
been witness since the creation of the globe." — 
Gibbon, vol. 2, ch. 15, p. 379. 

This objection of Gibbon is answered by Bishop 
Watson, in a double-en tendre paragraph, which opens 
with the curious word to the wise, that " though he 
was aware he was liable to be misunderstood in what 
he was going to say, yet Mr. Gibbon would not mis- 
understand him." Then follows the most extraor- 
dinary declaration of his own (a bishop's) faith, 
" that however mysterious the darkness at the cruci- 
fixion might have been, he had no doubt the power of 
God was as much concerned in its production as it 
was in the opening of the graves, and the resurrection 
of the dead bodies of the saints that slept, which 
accompanied that darkness." — [Third letter to Gibbon, 
last paragraph.] Another way of saying, that every 
sensible man must perceive that one part of the story 
was just as probable as the other, or that it was a 
romance altogether. The good Bishop ventured to 
trust his security to the well-proved truth of the 

158 



adage, '^ None are so blind as those who will not see." 
The immoral and mischievous tendency of the doc- 
trine of atonement for sin, so acceptable to guilty minds, 
and so eagerly embraced by the greatest monsters of 
iniquity, had been preached by self-interested priests, 
and reprobated by all Avho wished well to mankind, 
long before the doctrine was deduced from the 
Christian Scriptures, long before those Scriptures 
are pretended to have been written. 

Betore the period assigned to the birth of Christ, 
the poet Ovid had assailed the demoralizing delusion 
with the most powerful shafts of philosophic scorn : 

"Cum sis ipse nocens, moritur cur victima pro te? 
Stultitia est morte alterius sperare salutem." 

"When thou thyself art guilty, why should a victim 
die for thee? What folly it is to expect salvation 
from the death of another." 

No particle of difficulty remains, then, in accounting 
for the fact, that in that portion of the Acts of the 
Apostles in which the miraculous style is discontinued, 
and we so clearly trace the probable and most likely 
real adventures or journal of a missionary sent out 
from the college of the Egyptian Therapeuts joined 
on as an appendix to some fragment of their sacred 
legends which detailed the mystical adventures of the 
supposed first founders of their order, whose example 
the missionary was to have continually before him, — 
we should read, that when the apostolic Therapeut 
attempted to preach his doctrine of "Jesus Christ and 

159 



him crucified," at Athens, he found that the Athenians 
were already in possession of all he had to com- 
municate, and that what he was endeavoring to set 
off as a doctrine newly revealed was with them a 
very old story. He brought to their ears "no new 
things." The Epicurean and Stoical philosophers 
were more at home than himself upon that subject, 
and called him " a babbler," the very term that most 
expressively designates the character of a doting 
ignoramus, who, in the arrogance of his own conceit, 
will be for ever foisting up old stories of a hundred 
thousand years' standing, and swearing that they had 
occurred in his own experience, and had happened 
to nobody else but some particular acquaintances of 
his. 

The majority, however, carried the vote that he 
should have a fair hearing, and Paul was allowed to 
preach in the Areopagus. The previous rebuke he 
had received had completely subdued his impertinence ; 
he no more presumed to lay claim to originality in 
the crucifying story. He preached pure Deism, 
quoted their own poets, and ventured not once so 
much as to mention his Jesus, or to make an illusion 
that could be construed as referring to him ratlier 
than to any other of the god-men or man-gods who 
had risen from the dead as well as he. (Acts, xvii.) 

Prometheus, exactly answering to the Christian 
personification Providence, is, like that personification, 
used sometimes as an epithet synonymous with the 
Supreme Deity himself. The Pagan phrase, " Thank 
Prometheus," like the Christian one, " Thank 
Providence," its literal interpretation, meant exactly 

160 



the same as " Thank God." Thus in the Orphic 
Hymn to Chronus or Saturn, we have this sublime 
address to the Supreme Deity under his name Prome- 
theus, " Ilhistrious, cherishing Father, both of the 
immortal gods and of men, various of counsel, spot- 
less, powerful, mighty Titan, who consumest all 
things, and again thyself repairest them, who boldest 
the ineffable bands throughout the boundless world ; 
thou universal parent of successive being, various 
in design, fructifier of the earth and of the starry 
heaven, dread Prometheus, who dwellest in all parts 
of the world, author of generation, tortuous in counsel, 
most excellent, hear our suppliant voice, and send of 
our life a happy blameless end." Amen ! 

A free poetical version of a hymn to Di^na, 
expressive of her attributes, as generally believed and 
worshipped about the time of St. Paul, to the measure 
of the Sicilan Mariner's Hymn: — 

" Great is Diana of the Ephesians." — Acts, xix., 34. 



" Great Diana ! huntress queen ! 
Goddess bright, august, serene ! 
In thy countenance divine 
Heaven's eternal glories shine. 

Thou art holy ! thou alone. 
Next to Juno, fill'st the throne ! 
Thou for us on earth wast seen — 
Thou, of earth and heav'n the queen ! 



161 



They to thee who worship pay, 
From thy precepts never stray; 
Chaste they are, and just and pure, 
And from fatal sins secure ; 

Peace of mind 'tis theirs to know. 
To thy blessed sway who bow; 
Chastest body, purest mind — 
Will, to will of God resigu'd ; 
Conquest over griefs and cares ; 
Peace — for ever peace, is theirs. 

bright goddess ! once again 
Fix on earth thy heav'nly reign ; 
Be thy sacred name ador'd, 
Alters rais'd, and rites restored ! 

But if long contempt of thee 
Move thy sacied deity 
This so fond request to slight 
Beam on me, on me, thy light. 

Thy adoring vot'ry, I 
In thy faith will live and die ; 
And when Jove's supreme command 
Call me to the Stygian strand, 

1 no fear of death shall know. 
But with thee contented go ; 
Thou my goddess, thou my guide. 
Bear me through the fatal tide ; 

162 



Land me on tli' Elysian shore, 
Where nor sin, nor grief is more — 
Life's eternal blest abode, 
Where is virtue, where is God." 

First published in the Author's Clerical Review, in 
Ireland. 



THE PKAYER OF SIMPLICIUS. 

There is a most beautiful prayer of the Pagan 
Simplicius, generally given at the end of Epictetus' 
Enchiridion, and almost the model of that used in 
our Communion Service, "O Almighty God, to whom 
all hearts are open, all desires known," etc. The 
ideas are precisely the same ; the words and the 
machinery alone are a little varied. I find a ready- 
made poetical version of this in Johnson's Rambler : 

" O thou, whose pow'r o'er moving worlds presides. 
Whose voice created, and whose wisdom guides ! 
On darkling man in pure effulgence shine. 
And cheer the clouded mind with light divine. 
'Tis thine alone, to calm the pious breast 
With silent confidence and holy rest. 
From thee, great Jove I we spring, to thee we tend, 
Path, Motive, Guide, Original, and End !" 



163 



CHAPTER XXIL 



IN 1833 I introduced trolling for halibut and fished 
in that way one winter, in the gully north of Race 
Point, and kept it a secret, fisherman like, and 
caught about three shares of fish to my neighbor's 
one. 

The next winter all the neighbors knew it, and 
adopted that method of catching halibut, and in the 
following spring I introduced that form of fishing on 
Nantucket shoals and along the back of Cape Cod 
and followed it for several winters. 

In 1838 I introduced the netting of mackerel with 
gill nets, at Sandy Point, Pleasant Bay, Chatham and 
Nantucket. 

In 1841 my brother and myself fitted out the 
schooner Lucy Mary for a mackerel voyage to the 
Azore islands. It proved to be a failure, as my 
brother did not arrive at the islands in season to make 
a catch. They were not mackerel. 

In 1844 I introduced netting mackerel at Monhegan 
and subsequently at other points on the coast of 

164 



Maine, and also turned my attention to fresh fisliing 
and trolling halibut on Nantucket shoals, and could 
catch as many halibut as four or five New London 
smacks could in the old way. So I continued in that 
business for several years, netting mackerel in the 
summer season. 

In 1848 I brought the first mackerel ever received 
on ice in Boston. It was in the month of August. 
I took- them in the sloop smack American Eagle. 

In the same year I introduced the jib topsail, which 
made the smack go very fast in light winds. It was 
the first jib topsail ever seen on a fishing vessel or 
yacht in Massachusetts. 

In 1852 I had built a schooner smack of eight tons, 
called the Golden Eagle. She was constructed to 
carry two cargoes at one time, and she was a success. 
I could and did carry the largest load of live lobsters 
that any smack ever carried into New York, and as 
large a freight of iced halibut and cod on the well 
deck as any smack carried to New York. 

When I fished on Nantucket shoals I took in from 
2500 to 3000 lobsters and went on to the shoals and 
fished from three to five days, and then proceeded to 
New York. If I went to Georges Bank, then on my 
way to New York, I called at Provincetown and took 
in my lobsters, bought of the fishermen, as they 
always had plenty at that time. 

In the winter I run the schooner as a packet from 
Provincetown to Boston. 

In l853 I bought a small schooner called the 
Wave Crest, and made a very successful year's work 
in netting mackerel at Monomoy and Monhegan. 

165 



Then I gave up fishing and bought into the Central 
Wharf Company, with Mr. E. S. Smith, Mr. W. A. 
Atkins and Mr. Amasa Smith, and took the inspection 
department. 

I worked two years, and the third year, my health 
failing me, I employed Mr. W. A. Atkins to take my 
place, as he had previously sold out his interest to 
Captain Atkins Nickerson, and had been to Spring- 
field a year or so. At the close of the year I sold my 
interest to him, and purchased a small schooner and 
went to sea for my health, as it was not healthy to 
go without bread. I recovered my health in this 
way. 

The schooner was called the Mary E. She was a 
shell of a thing. 

I was successful for two years in running fresh 
mackerel to Boston in ice. There were others in the 
same business then — that was in 1859-61. 

In the summer of 1861 I bought a schooner which 
was then being built at Kennebunkport, and called 
her Rebecca N. Atwood, for my daughter. 

The first thirteen days I sailed her I cleared for 
myself f 550. She was a racer for those days. No 
market boat could beat liei-. She yielded me some 
two hundred dollars on the first two trips, on her s]3eed 
over others, I made in her to Monhegan, as I beat all 
the boats on the route and saved the Friday morning 
market both times, and no other boat arrived in 
season to save the morning market. 

The boats which I contended with which had fresh 
mackerel in ice were the Minnehaha, Yankee Maid, 
Daniel C. Baker and E Pluribus Unum of Swampscott. 

m 



I 



The next winter, 1862, T built the Cosmos; in the 
spring I built the Golden Rule, and run her as an 
express packet, carrying passengers from Province- 
town to Boston. 

I modelled another schooner, and she was built by 
David Clark of Kennebunkport. He built the 
schooner Susan West from my first model, in 1863. 

I left Kennebunkport July 13, 1863, with the said 
schooner. My crew was Captain J. 1\ Sparks and 
his wife as passengers, and my wife and daughter. 
They comprised all who were on board. The wind 
was light northeast. It was in the morning, and 
Captain Sparks remarked that he never saw a vessel 
go so fast with such a light breeze before. 

In the afternoon we saw the Cape, and the wind 
had hauled out east, southeast, and as we drew near 
the race we saw a large schoonei* yacht coming up 
the back side. So we put the schooner in the wind 
and swayed up fore and aft. We had all our bunting 
flying, as we were bound home, and it was the first 
day that the schooner had sailed. As we held up 
around the race the yacht hauled up in our wake, and 
hooked on for a race. It was head tide and the wind 
was dead ahead, and five and one-half miles to beat, 
and three and one-half miles of the wind. We readily 
preceived that we outwinded her, and dropped her, 
and she tacked ei^ery time we did, but kept falling 
to the leeward, so that when we weathered Wood 
End she was quite a distance to leeward, and did not 
pass Wood End until we were nearly across the 
harbor. 

When we shot alongside of my wharf, Captain 

107 



Sparks said: "There is the yacht just coming in 
the range of the fort on Long Point, two miles away." 
It proved to be the yacht America. 

It was a fair sail, and I beat her more than a mile 
and a half. But she was in the government employ, 
and sailors were managing her. That somewhat 
accounts for it. There is a great difference in those 
who think they know how to sail a yacht or fishing 
craft. There is a science in boat sailing as well as in 
modelling. 

I was quite well pleased when the Puritan sailed 
the race with the Genesta, as Captain Aubrey 
Crocker, formerly of Provincetown, was sailing master. 
The wind was light at first, and I saw that he had 
the science of sailing a craft, as he outpointed all the 
other boats. That gave him more wind. 

I saw by the account of all his movements that he 
had the science that I had, but I don't say he took it 
from me, although he was a near neighbor to me 
when he lived in Provincetown, and sailed with me 
when I was in the Cosmos. I think then he was 16 
or 17 years old. He was very quiet, and asked no 
questions, but was a close observer. 

I sometimes explained somethings to the crew, but 
the older men did not take any stock in what I told 
them, fishermen like. They thought they knew it all. 

At the same time they knew I could sail a boat 
or vessel faster than they could, and the most of them 
were willing to acknowledge it, as in all the races 
which I sailed I came out first best, until I sailed my 
keel boat with some centerboard boats belonging in 

168 



Connecticut, and tliey beat me every time This was 
at Monomoy. 

I bought a centerboard boat and brought her home 
and named her the " Reaper." She would discount 
any boat we had. She was the first centerboard boat 
that ever came to Provincetown. Since then there 
have been a great many built for all purposes. 

There was a lad went out with me in the schooner 
Mary E., to take lessons, when I was on a short 
trip, fresh fishing. He was somewhat out of health, 
and did not grow to manhood. He had a keen nerve 
for yachts, modelling and sailing miniature yachts 
the best of any one in town, and could beat all others 
at it. 

In sailing a yacht from a light breeze until the 
wind is blowing seven knots, four points is the 
criterion, but I have occasionally sailed three and one- 
half points from the wind with success, but it is not 
often that it can be done unless the wind is light and 
the water very smooth. 

None but the most skilful can be a successful boat 
sailer. It requires quickness of thought and accuracy 
of judgment. 

Here is the rule for sailing with a wind blowing 
under seven miles an hour: Trim your sails as they 
should be. This requires art and skill, as well as 
experience. 

Start with your course about five points from the 
wind, and as the craft gets her best speed then let 
her come slowly nearer towards the four points. By 
so doing you increase the wind, and so hold your 
speed, or gain it until you come to four points, and if 

169 



the speed does not lessen you can come a bit nearer, 
closely observing the speed of your craft. If you find 
it has deadened then give her a hard full and 
gain it as quick as you can, and lose no time. 

This is the science of windward work in yacht 
sailing. 

I never sailed a yacht, but I have beat a great 
many, of all classes except cutters, there not being 
any at that time. 

In 1869 I invented the launching topmasts, and 
received a patent for seventeen years. 

It was a success, but I was not able to introduce it. 
I had no skill in that direction. 

I built a fishing schooner, 105 tons, and applied the 
rig. She would sail faster than any other vessel of 
her model from a calm to a gale of wind, and faster 
even than much sharper vessels. 

The topmast came down and connected with the 
fife rail, and served as double masts, the other mast, 
being shorter than usual, and carried less heavy 
canvas and did not require reefing so often. 

All yachts and many clipper fishing craft which 
are built now have launching topmasts, but they 
don't connect with the rail or standard. It would be 
much better if they did, and they will come to it, 
sooner or later, in the twentieth century. 

I think it was about 1870 or 1871 that William 
Weld, who had a large schooner yacht, received a 
challenge for a race. He was going to have her masts 
taken out and longer ones put in. I saw the schooner 
at East Boston. Her masts and lower sails were just 
right for my rig for racing. I went to him and 

170 



offered him my patent free if he would rig his 
schooner with my rig. It would save considerable 
expense, and would not co^t him half as much ; but 
he declined. 

Then I told him I would guarantee to pay all his 
expenses, if he was beaten, if he would let me sail the 
yacht, and I would not charge anything for my 
services in any event. In this I had no success. 

So I rigged a small market boat and went to 
Gloucester to try to introduce the rig, knowing 
that it would be of great advantage to Gloucester, as 
they were just beginning the Grand Bank halibuting. 
The craft would sail faster then she could with the 
old rig, but I could not get any one to adopt it. 

If they had adopted it they would have saved a 
great many lives and many vessels from being 
wrecked and lost, and would also have made much 
more money, and their vessels would have made 
quicker passages and have been much safer. 

But the time will come when men will know more 
than they do now, and they will laugh at our foolish 
ways as we laugh at those who lived before our day. 
The world is progressing, and the earth has moved 
ever since the days of Joshua, and will continue to 
. move in the ages to come. 

It is a fact that it moved just the same in Joshua's 
time, only the people did not know it. 

As the fish curers in Provincetown pickle nearly 
all their Bank fish (and have been doing so for 
man}^ years), I will tell you who pickled the first 
Grand Bank fish in Provincetown, where that business 

171 



begun. They pickled Georges fish in Gloucester, but 
not Bank fish. 

I think it was about 1854 that J. W. Smith was 
master of the schooner D. C. Smith. He sailed in 
the schooner for me two fares to the Grand Banks. 
The price for fish was very low. He went on two 
fares, and on the last one secured only 300 quintals. 

When I had them half cured, there being no sale for 
fish at that time, I told him that I would buy the fish 
as they were, without any more drying and give him 
the price received for the last sales, so we could settle 
up the voyage, as it was a hard one, and he and his 
crew could have what little was coming to them. He 
accepted my proposition, and the next day weighed 
off the fish to me, and I put them in pickle. 

That was some time in October. I kept them in 
until the middle of February. Then I took them out 
and subsequently put them on the flakes one short 
day, and piled them away. 

On the twenty-second of February a New York agent 
came over to Long Point and bought them at a good 
price, so that I made a fair profit. They overrun 
some ten quintals more than when I bought them, 
and that added made a good speculation for a small 
trade. 

That was the beginning of pickling Bank fish in 
Provincetown. 

I pickled quite a number of fares while I carried on 
the Banking business in that town, but the Banking 
business is like the tide there. Sometimes it is flood 
tide, and if high of course it is prosperous and comes 



172 



high ; but ebb tide is sure to follow and go very low 
sometimes. 

That was my experience for more than sixty-two 
years during which I was a resident there, when I 
was run out and the bottom dropped out of business. 

I left Provincetown without a dollar to my name 
to enter the commission business in Boston. It was 
an uphill road to travel at my age, but nothing 
daunted I commenced my work in earnest. 

I had opposition to contend with, and much 
business on my hands for the benefit of the fisheries, 
in behalf of my shippers, without any remuneration 
for services rendered, before many committees of the 
Legislature, Board of Railroad Commissioners, Board 
of Health and other city officials. 

I have the satisfaction of knoAving that I was never 
defeated there on any remonstrance or the repeal of 
any law passed against the rights of fishermen that I 
carried before the Legislature. 

Some Boston gentlemen made me generous presents 
in the shape of dollars for the good service I had 
rendered them, for which I give them thanks. It has 
enabled me to procure a nice comfortable home in 
Maiden, and I have a modest income, sufficient for 
my daily wants, and now I have nothing to trouble 
or worry me in this world, nor in any other. 

I have fought a good, practical fight, and have laid 
up treasures enough to feed and clothe me the 
remainder of my days, and have the satisfaction of 
knowing that I have done right, according to the 
best of my knowledge and ability. With the same 
knowledge I might have made and kept more money, 

173 



but that would not liave given me tlie satisfaction 
and peace of mind and clear conscience. 

This book has not been written for money, but at 
the earnest solicitation of many friends who desired 
it as a keepsake. 

If money had been my object of course T should 
have done as many other book writers have done, 
skipped over the truth when it was too strong for 
many readers. They want a theory that will agree 
with their feelings and assure them that they shall 
have what they will never get ; but there is one thing 
in their favor, and that is that they will never know 
it. That is no disappointment. 



174 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



1WILL now relate a few incidents of my past 
life, selecting only a very few of the many, and 
only those to which living witnesses can testify to 
their truthfulness. 

I will go back to the period embraced in the years 
from 1843 to 1846, during which time I was running 
a small sloop smack, catching fish and taking them 
alive to the Boston market, principally cod. 

During the several winters when we had made 
trips, and the wind breezed up from the southeast, 
with snow, if there was time sufficient to carry the 
craft to Boston before it was dark, I always squared 
away for Boston. But all the other smacks harbored 
at Provincetown. The next morning found us in 
Boston, with a cold northwest wind, a good time to 
sell our cargo. 

We sold and delivered the fish and sailed for home 
before night, and the next morning found us at our 
moorings, close beside our neighbors ; they with their 
fish in, and we ready to go for another fare. 

So you see the advantage we had. I had three 
excellent men with me, although they would not take 
such chances, but put all confidence in me, and never 

175 



hung back. It was a pleasure to have such men for 
a crew. They we all good pilots, but they have all 
gone the way of flesh. Peace be to their ashes. 
Their names were N. E. At wood, my older brother ; 
John Ginn and Philip Smith. 

There are men in Provincetown who know the 
statements I make are true. 

But I will mention one instance in this connection 
which has no living witness to corroborate it. 

I think it was in the winter of 1845. We left 
Boston in the evening with a light southeast breeze. 
We always stood single watch in good weather. I 
took the first, and when we were at Long Island head 
I called Philip Smith, and as the weather looked a 
little threatening I did not take of my boats, nor 
clothes, but lay down in my berth and fell asleep. 

Subsequently I heard Philip say " All hands on 
deck ! A squall !" I sprung up the gang way, 
and Philip jumped and let go the mainsail halyards. 
The little craft's lee rail was well under. When we 
had got the sails both down, and all hands were on 
deck, I asked Philip where we were, and he replied : 

"About half way from Boston Light to Point 
Allerton buoy." 

" All right," said I, and I clapped the little craft 
before the wind, hustled the peak of the mainsail to 
the wind, and steered the craft through the winding 
channel iuto the Narrows, and anchored near 
Lovell's island, without having seen land, light or 
buoy, for it was very dark and thick snow, with a 
blizzard to help it. 

I relate this incident because it illustrates the 



176 



connection of the instinctive with the cerebellum as 
applied to the cerebrum, giving accurate course and 
distance. 

Be not surprised as you will find this phenomenon 
fully verified in what I am about to relate, and con- 
cerning which I shall give you evidence to sub- 
stantiate all I say. 

Whenever I have had occasion to blend the 
visionary with the real I have never made a mistake, 
nor ran a vessel ashore, nor missed my mark. 

I will relate a circumstance bearing on this point. 
The steamer George Shattuck was new, I think, in 
the winter 1864. I was in Boston on business, and 
had occasion to take passage in the said steamer home. 
It was not a very propitious looking time. We left 
the city at the usual time, and when we got down to 
Minot's light house it began to snow and breeze fast. 
So I took the bearings and Avent into the cabin, as 
there were some thirty passengers, there being several 
ladies among them. Mrs. Smith, the captain's wife, 
was one of them. 

She was very nervous, and said to me : 

" Captain Atwood, we are going to have a dreadful 
time. The snow is so thick how can we find the 
way^" 

I said to her : ''We are going to Provincetown. It 
is all right. No matter about the snow. It is un- 
comfortable, but we are sure of our port, and there is 
no dajiger." 

This seemed to calm the agitation somewhat. I 
took my paper, but occasionally looked out, and kept 
the speed of the boat in my mind until I considered 

177 



we were well over across the bay, when I took my 
overcoat to put on, as my brother, N. E., came into 
the cabin and said: 

'' Captain Smith wants to see you at the wheel 
house." 

"Very well," said said I ; I was just going up." 

Now Captain Smith was a sea captain, but 
not much of a coast or packet pilot, but his two 
chief officers were good pilots. Mr. Samuel Kilburn, 
the mate, was a good bay pilot, and had run a vessel 
many years. The clerk, Mr. N. P. Holmes, now living, 
was a very good pilot. He had run as master of 
a packet from Provincetown many years. To him I 
refer you for the truth of this statement. 

But Captain Smith was one of those men who did 
not care to call upon any of his officers for advice, 
but being intimately acquainted with me he preferred 
to call upon me, and did so. 

When I arrived at the wheel house I said : 

'' Captain, how have you run since you left Minot's? " 

He replied : 

" Southeast by east." 

I said : 

" Swing her off four points south by east. We 
shall make Race Point inside of thirty minutes." 

In about twenty-five minutes I said : 

" Swing her off. There is the bell frame on Race 
Point, near the light house." 

In a few minutes we were in smooth water. Then 
I said : 



178 



'' Captain, I thank you for giving me an invitation 
to take part in this, for it gives me pleasure to render 
any assistance where it is needed.'^ 

I said this because I saw the captain's great 
anxiety, and I had relieved him of it. 

I do not think he asked either of his officers for 
any advice as to how to steer the boat for Province- 
town, as I never made any inquiry of them. 

But Mr. N. P. Holmes can tell you whether he did 
or not. I think it was a great burden on him, and 
he ought to have consulted them, knowing they 
were good pilots. He needed advice, and without it 
he would have run the boat outside of the cape in a 
heavy easterly gale, and night approaching. 

I think he felt it afterwards, as he mentioned the 
circumstance to me some eight or ten times during 
the remainder of his life. 

At another time when I was a passenger he run 
into a thick fog, and made the Graves just in time 
to stop the boat and avoid striking the rocks. 

When we knew we had passed Minot's, and 
were close to Hardings, Mr. Holmes, the clerk, said 
to me : 

" We are in the channel and ought to haul up, 
west northwest." 

I said : 

"Yes, and if he runs northwest much longer he 
will be on the Graves." 

He never was such a pilot as Provincetown now 
has in Captain John Smith of the steamer Longfellow. 

It is a blessing to passengers to know that the 
captain is a pilot. I never give myself any 

179 



uneasiness in thick weather when I am on board the 
Longfellow, and never trouble myself to look out. 

Well, I will mention another occasion when I 
regretted to be forced to take the position which I did. 
It was when Captain R. Stevens ran the packet 
schooner Cosmos, and Mr. Samuel Kilburn was mate, 
and John W. Atwood was clerk. 

I think it was in 1862 or 1863. I had occasion to 
go to Boston. It was the first part of January, and 
a Saturday. It was very cold, and the vapor was so 
thick we could not see half way from Commercial 
wharf to East Boston. 

Captain Stevens said to Mr. Kilburn : 

''Get in what freight you have and haul around 
the corner before the vessel grounds." 

When he had gone, I said to Mr. Kilburn : 

" I hope you will ground." 

He replied : 

" I hope so, too ; but I must obey orders." 

I said to him : 

" There will be no fit time for any vessel to cross the 
bay to-night, and you are having the schooner loaded 
under water." 

We left Commercial wharf at a quarter past three 
in the afternoon, and at that time it was blowing a 
gale out in the bay. 

They put a close reef in the mainsail, and when 
we had arrived at Point Allerton buoy I went down 
and rigged up warm and put on an oil suit belonging 
to the Captain, as he had all he could do to look 
after the passengers, and did not come on deck during 
the whole night. 

180 



Well, I took the wheel at the bell buoy at Hardings 
ledge. I said when I took it : 

" I shall not leave the wheel until we arrive in 
Provincetown, if the little schooner keeps above 
water long enough to get there." 

A packet, you know, is never overloaded, like our 
horse cars. 

I recently rode on a horse car where there were 
fifteen men and one boy on the rear platform at one 
time. It was very difficult for me to retain my 
position, and avoid being pushed over the back rail, 
owing to the crush, although holding on with both 
hands. 

Well, I will describe the schooner that we had to 
cross the bay in. She was stowed full of freight over 
her winter ballast. She had sixty barrels of beef and 
pork, and four hogsheads of molasses on deck, which 
was only a few inches above the water. The vessel 
drew about eleven feet. All the water that came on 
deck to stay turned to ice. 

We had thirty-five passengers on board, and some 
ten or twelve of them were seamen, and you can be 
sure they were on deck to stay. No seaman who 
thought any thing of his life would leave the deck 
until we were out of danger. They were all ready to 
execute any order that might be given them. 

When we were nearly across I placed two men who 
I knew were trustworthy and sure at the main 
halyards, and told them to have both through and 
peak halyards so they could be let go at a second's 
warning, and the others were to haul in the main 

181 



sheet until the boom was jibed, and then jump to the 
halyards and put the mainsail up quick. 

As the main boom was on the starboard side it had 
to be jibed if we made the breakers on the back side 
bars. I intended for the vessel to be headed off 
shore without going once her length after breakers 
were discovered if she did not strike bottom. 

I sent word forward just what to do, and orders to 
do it quick, if breakers were seen. I said : 

" Men, we are now ready, and shall probably make 
Race Point in ten minutes." 

John Winslow, a passenger, went up on the third 
hoop on the mainsail, and had not been there more 
than seven or eight minutes when he sung out : 

"Light O right ahead !" 

I swung her off a point, and the next revolution he 
and others shouted : 

" Light O one point off the weather bow !" 

It was seen fore and aft. The third flare-up it was 
right abeam and close to. 

So we proceeded, and I was very glad to be relieved 
of the anxiety. 

We then hoisted a small jib, and when we came 
around Long Point, to beat up the harbor, it was 
very dark, when something within seemed to say : 

" Time to tack." 

I ordered '' Ready about," and put the wheel astar- 
board, when she quickly shot past a schooner that 
was at anchor. I said : 

" Mr. Kilburn, didn't you see that vessel ? " 

" No, sir," was the reply. 

182 



Ill three seconds more we should have struck the 
schooiiei', and probably have sunk her. 

There was no one on board of her, and she had 
no light up. 

Well, we arrived at central wharf at twelve 
o'clock and landed the passengers. 

I do not remember many of them who are now 
living. I think Moses Turner was one. But all who 
were on board will remember the circumstances when 
they read this account. 

The next morning was Sunday, and when the 
citizens came down to the wharf and saw the vessel, 
they said : 

" Here is the Cosmos. Well, that was Atwood. 
That vessel never Avould have crossed the bay in such 
a night if he had not been on board." (That was 
probably so.) 

But I took it rather as disparagement then praise, 
as T did not think I was such a fool as to take such 
chances when there was no need of it. And I have 
felt angry with myself every time I have thought of 
it since — that I had not protested against the vessel 
leaving. If I had not owned the vessel, and have 
had a son on board, I should have walked up and 
stopped in Boston. 

So many similar circumstances have caused me to 
be an old man at eighty, because I have so often 
drawn the intuitive powers of the cerebellum, 
which did not belong to me to use only in very 
extreme cases between life and death. 

But having the key that unlocks the mystery box 
that contains the interior vision and blend it with the 



183 



intelligence of the cerebrum and use it in connection 
to give whatever is needed, be it course and distance, 
from one object to another ; or if any thing be lost, by 
the same aid it can be found, as I have proven many 
times. It is a wonder, and it has surprised me many 
times ; but it belongs to man, and neither spiiit nor 
angel has anything to do with it. 

I will give you the particulars of another occurrence. 
I think it was during the next winter. Captain 
Stevens commanded the Cosmos, Captain John Burt 
was mate, and J. W. Atwood was clerk. Alfred 
Nickerson was one of the crew, I think. 

We left Provincetown at 9 o'clock in the morning. 

1 was a passenger, with some ten or twelve others, 
principally seamen. 

As we sped away from Steamboat wharf the 
pilot boat Marshal Tukey, No. 4, I think it was, 
started close behind us. The wind was southeast 
and light, and I urged the schooner along as fast as I 
could by trimming and the laying on of hands on the 
wheel, so when we were half way across toward the 
Minot we were a mile and a half ahead of the pilot 
boat, and it shut down with thick snow and began to 
breeze very fast. 

I shaped our course for Scituate Point, made the 
lighthouse close aboard, then for South Entering 
rock, and timed the distance. Captain Elijah Doane 
standing in the gangway keeping time. 

When the time was up we sighted the rock, hauled 
off northeast, saw the breakers on the Castor and 
Palock ; then I steered her for Minot's, giving her 
seven minutes ; when the time was up the lighthouse 

184 



was close aboard. Then I shaped her course for the 
Bell Boat, giving the time as twenty-seven minutes, 
but we had to shorten sail and I discovered it in 
twenty-nine minutes. 

Then seven minutes to Point Auling buoy, which I 
saw just in time ; and as the main boom was on the 
port side we had to haul down the mainsail and jibe. 
When we had jibed we saw Boston lighthouse close 
aboard. 

Then I shaped her course for False Spit buoy, and 
Captain Stevens came aft and asked me how I was 
running. 

I said: "West by south." 

"Are you not running up too much?" he asked. 

I said, "No" 

In time we made the buoy, and every other one I 
run her for, clear to the city, and got in the dock, 
when it was quite dark ; and when we were going by 
the end of the T we were running at the rate of 
six knots under bare poles. 

But the pilot boat had to lay out all night. 

Mr. Burt said : 

" I am glad you came, as we should not have been 
here now if you had not come." 

I said "No." 

Than Captain Dan Conway and others said : 

" You are the strangest man we ever saw. Can you 
see so much better than anybody else?" 

I said : " No." 

"Why, you saw everything first, and while some 
eight or ten men were nearer the object than you 
were." 



185 



Then I said I steered the vessel, stated the object I 
was running for and the time it would take to get 
there, and asked them if I had made a mistake. 

They said T had not. I then told them that if I 
had made a mistake I should not have been the first 
person to see the object. 

..• My readers will say that it was all chance, but 
how did it happen that I never missed my mark nor 
run a vessel ashore in those dark and thick times, and 
I have run a great many of them. 

Some of my readers will believe many other things 
that they cannot understand, and can't put into 
practice. 

Well, let every one be fully persuaded in his own 
mind, but he need not follow Paul, but have some 
manhood in himself. 

I will give one more novel instance in my long 
career. 

Some years ago 1 was running a little smack to 
Boston with lobsters. One afternoon I came out of 
Provincetown late, with light southeast winds. I had 
two passengers on board, N. E. At wood and Captain 
T. L. Mayo of the firm of T. L. Mayo & Co. of Com- 
mercial street, Boston, now living. 

As the fog became very thick at sunset, I shaped 
my course for the iron frame on Minot's ledge, the 
light having been previously wrecked and broken 
down, and the keepers drowned. 

My two passengers went below, as I said we should 
be at the ledge about 9 o'clock. I had a small boy 
with me. It was smooth, and the smack was running 
five or six miles an hour We both sat down on the 



186 



deck. I listened, supposing I should hear the surf on 
the rocks. At five minutes before nine I told the 
boy to go and let down the square sail, as we called it 
(now called a spinnaker), and as he arose he said : 

" Here is a buoy right alongside." 

I put the helm hard aport, and as the two men 
came out of the gangway, the sails took back before 
the sail could be lowered, or the main guy be let go, 
and the sloop stopped. My brother let the guy go, 
and Captain Mayo hauled in the boom by taking all 
parts of the main sheet, and the boy had got the 
spinnaker down, and the frame work was not half the 
width of the smack away, and, as the current was 
setting over the rock against the iron strands, the 
hull struck. The heel struck the rock as we pushed 
her off with our hands and two eight foot oars. She 
started ahead and struck bottom three times. As we 
cleared the ledge the main toplift would have caught 
the crossbars ; I cut the fall and Captain Mayo jerked 
it clear, hauling the boom to windward. Then we 
squared away and went to Boston all right. 



187 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



THERE is a fish which is called a dog. It is not 
a true fish. It has fins, but no scales. It is 
called cartilagenous. When it is pupped the mother 
nurses the little pup from a bottle until the little fish 
can feed itself. 

There is another kind of a fish called a cat. It is 
a true fish, but it don't have kittens. It lays eggs 
and then goes off and leaves them to hatch them- 
selves, the same as the Murs and Turs do that lay 
their eggs on the Macatine islands on the ooast of 
Labrador. 

We have another kind of fish called a crustacean, 
that lays her eggs and covers or sets on them as the 
domestic fowl which takes some three weeks for the 
chickens to come out, and when they are hatched 
they are as perfect in form as their mother is. 

I had a hatching place where I hatched out many 
thousands. Even in one night I have hatched out 
more than one thousand, and strewed them along the 
coast from Cape Cod to Long Island Sound. 



188 



And there is another peculiar fish. It is called a 
monk fish. That was a name given to it long ago, 
probably on account of its great capacity for swallow 
ing objects hirger than its own body, as the monks of 
Egypt had the capacity of swallowing the whole 
creation, and then throwing it up again, as Jonah 
was hove up. 

This may have been the fish that God created, or 
rather prepared, to swallow him, as I have taken from 
the stomach of one of them another fish of the same 
kind, and those boys who were with me all pro- 
nounced the one which was within the other as the 
largest and would weigh the most. 

Fishermen call them "goose" fish. Perhaps the 
name was given them because one of them had swal- 
lowed a live goose ; but whether so or not I am not 
able to say. 

But I do know that one of them swallowed a large 
gull whole, feathers and all, as I took the gull from 
the fish's stomach. It was what we call a Colonel 
gull, and weighed about four pounds. 

The gull was evidently swimming on the water 
when the fish swam along under him, and opened 
that great mouth of his, and Mr. Gull was taken in 
and done for. 

But it was too much for the fish, as he lost his 
balance, turned over on his back, and became 
unmanageable, and drifted ashore, where I found him. 
So I might give him a new name and call him a gull 
fish, but he is a useless fish and has no brains. 

You have read the Jonah fish story in your Bible, 

189 



but it is not very correctly given in that book ; so I 
am making no comments on it. 

But here is another fish story which probably you 
think is a true one. 

It looks very plausible, as Peter was a great fisher- 
man. He was commanded to go and catch a fish and 
take money from its mouth and pay their taxes with 
it. 

That does not seem a miracle to me, that a fish was 
caught with money in its mouth by as expert a fisher- 
man as Peter was said to be. 

I have caught hundreds of fish with coined money 
in their mouths, both Spanish and American coin, 
and made use of the said money. I don't know as I 
exactly paid taxes with it, but it was good for that. 

But I was a fisherman much longer than Peter was, 
and never left my trade to fish for men as he did. 

As fish stories are so marvellous I think it best not 
to tell any more, and if any one doubts the truth of 
any of my fish stories if he will come to me I will 
explain how it was done, and prove that all I have 
written on that subject is strictly true. 



190 



CHAPTER XXV. 



JWI OSES made one mistake. His acts, as written 
y \ by himself, were not mistakes. His ambition 
was to control the Israelites, and he accomplished it for 
a time by the aid of his brother Aaron ; and when he 
could not control them any longer he took the gold 
calf, with the pretence of going up the mountain to 
inquire of the Lord what to do, and when he got over the 
mountain he skipged with the calf, and did not leave 
anything behind him, not even his clothing.* ' 

So the old preachers declared that he hdd gone to 
heaven, clothes and all. And ministers preach it to- 
day. This is where the mistake is (not in Moses). 

I consider him to have been a shrewd man, learned, 
level-headed, with power to deceive. 

But I don't say what I think of men to-day who 
will preach that men go up to heaven alive, with 
there old clothes on, as they say Enoch and Moses 
did. 

This is too much gospel for the nineteenth century, 
and will be fully ignored in the United States in the 

191 



twentieth century, when the theological scales drop 
from men's eyes. (Satan's reign is nearly ended.) 

Then they will see the fraud that has been 
practiced by the old Jewish priests. Rabbi Solomon 
Schindler don't speak very well of them. 

I have told you several times that Moses never 
wrote the books ascribed to him, giving an account of 
the second creation, so freely credited to him ; nor did 
he write the first chapter of Genesis, which describes 
another creation, wholly and entirely different from 
the second. 

I will here note some of the differences of those two 
creations as given in the Bible, from internal evidence 
that cannot lie. 

In the first creation the writer says that God 
created man in his own image, male and female, and 
commanded them to multiply, and gave them 
dominion over everything, and all animals, fishes and 
vegetables should be to eat. (Scientific.) 

In the second creation the writer says the Lord 
God created man before the lower order. (Un- 
scientific.) 

This Adam was a know-nothing, and did not know 
what to eat. So the Lord told the scribe to tell him 
what to eat, and what not to eat. 

I will mention some of those things that he was 
forbidden to eat : 

Of animals the swine or hog and the bear are very 
good meat and previously allowed by God. And of 
fish thou shalt not eat the swordfish, it is not a true 
fish (cartilagenous); nor the dog fish, but the catfish 
you can eat. And the ink or cuttlefish (mollusk) 

192 . 



thou shalt not eat. The fishermen call them squid. 

The crustacean and bivalve the Israelites were not 
forbidden to eat. I give these latter names because 
those learned professors are more familiar with them 
than they w^ould be with our fishermen's names. We 
are not familiar with each other's names, as I know 
some species to have four or five names that they are 
known by in different localities. 

We are not a learned lot of men, and no doubt you 
wonder why Jesus should choose such men to found 
his Father's gospel on. As I know the reason why 
they were the best adapted to spread the true gospel 
I will refer to it when I get down to Jesus' time. 

Jesus was a true reformer, but the people were 
ignorant and had to be deceived in order to be led as 
they always had been by Moses. 

So he said he had come to fulfil the law and make 
and end of it. (A very polite way of condemning 

it.) 

He often referred to the law, and said that he was 
the chief for whom they had been looking to 
redeem them from the Roman bondaoje. 

He was a wise leader, and claimed that he would 
receive power from his Father in heaven to do it. 

Jesus did not believe in the Mosaic creation at all, 
but condemned it in every essential part, and agreed 
with the first creation as I have given it to you, 
which was substantially as follows: 

First, that the children of men were the sons of 
God, and that they had a right to everything on the 
earth for their use, and that all days were made for 
man. The Sabbath was made for man, and not man 



193 



for the Sabbath, as Moses had declared; and that 
man was free and could not be the property of 
another man and entailed down to his heirs as prop- 
erty forever, as Moses had declared, and that every 
man who was hungry was entitled to all the corn he 
could eat, whether it was Sunday or Monday, no 
matter who planted the corn. 

Moses called that the accursed thing, to take corn 
that others had planted and eat it, especially on the 
Sabbath, which he denounced as dreadful wicked, 
and to defend themselves for so doing was un- 
pardonable. 

Jesus instructed Peter when he was hungry to arise 
against oppression, sla}^ and eat, and to call nothing 
unclean that (xod had made. Everything was good. 

So you see that Jesus belongs to the first creation, 
and the only true one. 

He also declared that he was God manifest in the 
flesh. (So were they, but they were too weak to receive 
such good news.) 

But he was defeated by tlie Romans in his march 
on the Mount of Olives, from where he intended 
to go into Jerusalem in disguise, only five furlongs 
distance. 

Had Jesus gained the day there would have been 
no Mosaic doctrine preached to-day. There would 
not be even a grease spot of that barbarous and cruel 
and false Judaism left, for he intended to wipe out 
slavery and destroy that curse, justified by the old 
law of Moses, called the law of God, I mean the 
Southerners' God. 

They were honest and thought their slaves were 

194 



their property, and guaranteed by the God of Moses. 

And how can you blame them ? 

They were very religions people, onr brothers and 
Mosiac Christians. 

This is just what Jesus told the Jews, that if they 
held on to the old Mosiac law it would make a 
wrangling in the family, and they would take up the 
sword and shed blood, and they did it with a 



vengeance. 



I am sorry, yea, more than sorry, for it would have 
prevented that wicked rebellion, and we should not 
have had the dreadful results of that cruel and 
foolish war resting on us. 

It makes my heart bleed as it were to think of it. 
In 185T I stated in a public discussion in Province- 
town, Mass., that there would be a serious rebellion 
and war in this country, such as had not been seen for 
many years, and that it would come inside of ten 
years and that the pretext would be slavery. 

But the real cause was the misinterpretation of the 
Old and New Testaments, they being antagonistic, 
and both claiming to be the word of God. 

The Southern people claimed the God of Moses. 

The Northern people advocated the gospel as 
taught by Jesus. 

And both would surely fight to enforce their own 
belief. 

Now we all know, or ought to know, that our 
Federal Constitution guarantees to us religious liberty, 
but the people don't get it. 

Better than that, we discard the Moses gospel of a 
multiplicity of wives. Solomon had seven hundred, 

195 



and was not satisfied with even that number. He 
was called a wise man. 

Our congressmen would not allow poor Brigham 
Young to have even forty when it was his privilege 
to have as many as he could take care of. 

They said it was not moral, and passed a vote that 
a man should have only one wife, and then provided 
for its enforcement. 

This was not according to the Constitution, but 
thought to be better morals. 

I have told you about the South. Their religion 
did not suit us. So we declared "home rule," and 
sustained it. Good for us, and for Jesus. 

Our predecessor declared it, but, like Parnell, 
he did not accomplish it. There was too much 
ignorance, superstition and priestcraft. 

But our prototype told his followers that all the 
mighty works he did they should do, yea, more. 

And we have done them. So that prophecy is 
fulfilled. 

We have now said that the Chinese should not 
come because they would not give up their law giver 
and Ching-Ching for our Joss. We will allow no 
more to come, but will drive away all that are here 
unless they will give up their Joss and Ching-Ching 
for ours and become citizens. 

This seems rather cruel in a country which tolerates 
religious liberty, or pretends to (but it is over the 
left). 

We are following Jesus quite close. He forbid 
marriage altogether, until he should have accomplished 
his purpose, as women and children would be an 

196 



incumbrance to them in tlieir fight for liberty and 
manliness ; but then they should have one wife each. 

Then he would reign or rule and they should 
snow down purely on mankind, as his father intended 
from the beginning. 

Jesus was not opposed to women. It was Paul, or 
Saul, that wicked Jewish boy bachelor and free lover, 
who kept a woman at Damascus. 

Jesus loved the girls, that is he loved Martha and 
Mary. At least your book says he did. 

Now don't mix the two men together. One is of 
the old school, and the other of the new. 

Paul would be tolerated by some of the preachers 
were he here to-day. 

But Jesus would sit with us in state. And the 
priests of the Levites and the deacons of this world 
would pass by on the other side, and let us take care 
of bleeding humanity. 

My dear friends, don't let Jewish Christians deceive 
you. Jesus has laid the foundation stone anew, and 
no other foundation shall any other man lay that will 
be a success. 

There is a set of men who have that old brazen 
serpent of Moses coiled away and ready for use when 
the proper time comes. 

Let me cry Woe, Woe, unto Croison. Woe unto 
Bethesda. Woe unto Sodom and Gomorrah. Woe 
unto Jerusalem. We have got the golden calf, and 
the God of power is on our side. 

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so 
has the son of man been lifted up and down, but the 
days of their deception are numbered. Jesus is 

197 



authority. He said his followers could take up 
serpents, and if they drank the deadly poison (that 
is, Judaism) it would not hurt them. 

All we who have received the gifts by the laying 
on of hands, the love of man to man. 

But I am inclined to think there are those who 
know better than they act. 

The morning light is breaking, 

The star has arisen in the West, 

We have nothing to fear, 

Our God and Humanity, 

Our Christ, will prevail. 

The wicked will cease from troubling us 

And the weary will be at rest. 

This ode is dedicated to the wise by the 
author, J. A., the old fisherman. 

According to the promise I will now give my 
learned friends a short sketch of Jesus, their would-be 
Saviour had he conquered the Romans and liberated 
his people and taught them the new life. 

Jesus was of the tribe of Judah. 

As a young man he was bold, ambitious, and in 
wisdom far surpassed all others of his day and time. 

He was a friend of the poor man and common 
laborer. 

He was death to aristocracy and priestcraft. 

He taught his followers to call no man master. All 
were as brothers of a common family. 

Jesus of the tribe of Judah, John of the tribe of 
Levi as the alias, and Christ put forth an effort to 
liberate the Jews from Roman bondage. 

198 



They claimed to have a message from God, that is 
the true God. 

John, being a priest, well versed in the scriptures, 
could draw the common people after him. 

He figured largely in upper Galileo, and instituted 
the temperance pledge and caused all to sign it, so 
they could be trusted. 

Jesus, knowing Avhere to find bold and resolute 
men, went down to Tiber us, in lower Galilee. He 
enlisted Pestus the governer, and Justus the warrior, 
or general, in his favor, and then went among the 
fishermen of Tiberus and along the coast of Galilee 
and called the fishermen and common laborers, and 
raised an army of thirty thousand soldiers. 

And Peter, as he called him, was their leader. 
This Peter was Simon of the tribe of Zebulon, who 
was called the son of Thunder by his brethren, be- 
cause he went off on the water and attacked big fish. 

He had courage. He could fight, or fish for men. 

Now, when the passover was about to come Jesus 
chose the most resolute and trust}^ of his men to 
secure weapons and follow him up to Jerusalem as 
though to worship God. 

But Felix, the gOA^ernor, feared there might be 
trouble, and being informed by an apostate Jew of the 
circumstance got his army in order and attacked 
Jesus on the Mount of Olives, and defeated him, and 
slew many and captured a number of prisoners. 

Jesus and all who could run away, and boarded 
ships which took them safely to Tiberus. That ended 
his campaign in Jerusalem, his subsequent battles 
being fought in Galilee. He was the principal cause of 

199 



the last war between the Jews and the Romans, which 
terminated so disastrously to them. 

Men have got so much learning to-day and use so 
many useless words that even a eunuch could not 
understand without a Philip to act as interpreter. I 
will give you a sample. 

God said : "Let there be light." 

But the learned can flourish it off with the follow- 
ing words : 

"How wonderful ! Deity commanded that there 
should be light. That fair, first born of nature, should 
spring into existence with its almighty fiat. Light 
was ushered in from the womb of eternal darkness to 
enlighten this terrestrial ball with its glance of efful- 
gence." Hear, hear. 

And again we have it. The gunner went shooting 
birds ; or, the sportsman shot a jay. 

How sublime the following is : 

"The sportsman observed the feathered rover ; he 
lifts his gun, and sends the blow ; swifter than a 
whirlwind flies the leaden death and lays the simple 
creature breathless on the ground." 

The bird is dead ! So be it. So be it. 

Who was Jesus "^ 

He was a reformer, and taught the true relation- 
ship of man to God, or the gods who created him, our 
Father who rules in the heavens. 

Jesus was a believer in the first creation which I 
have described, and endeavored to convince his peo- 
ple that his father god was Love, and not angry with 
the people every day as Moses taught. 

He condemned every essential point of the Mosaic 

200 



scriptures, and branded Moses as a fraud. I have no 
need to quote from the records. You have them, and 
can examine for yourselves. 

But I will compare their doctrines, and leave you 
to decide. 

Moses says " an eye for an eye," and '■' a tooth for 
a tooth," and " whosoever sheddeth man's blood by 
man shall his blood be shed." Retaliation with a 
vengeance. 

But Jesus says, "Resist not evil," or, in other 
words, render not evil for evil. If you are compelled 
to go one mile, go two. 

Moses commands a strict observance of the Sab- 
bath, not even allowing the people to defend them- 
selves on that day. 

Jesus taught that all days were alike, and that the 
Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, 
as Moses taught; and that it was right for his follow- 
ers to pluck and eat the corn on that day, and not 
the accursed thing that Moses had described. 

Moses forbid eating certain kinds of food. (That 
was good.) 

Jesus made no restrictions, but told Peter to eat 
just what he wanted, if he could get it. 

Moses taught the priest and Levite deacon to 
attend their meetings, and let the wounded lay for 
somebody else to care for. 

But Jesus acknowledged as his brother the Samari- 
tan who did the right thing. 

Moses recommended slavery, and gave his people 
the right to buy and sell and own men and women as 
property and entail it to their posterity forever. 

201 



Jesus says man shall not hold property in man. 

Moses says, " servants, obey your masters." 

Jesus says, " call no man master. On earth all ye 
are brethren," 

Moses gives license to have as many wives as you 
want. Those who had the most were the wisest men. 
Solomon and David were noted examples. 

Jesus forbid marriage, and told Peter to leave his 
wife and follow him, or he could not be his disciple. 

Jonah says God prepared a fish to swallow him. 

Matthew says Jonah was in the whale's belly 
three days and three nights. 

Now you know a whale is not a fish. 

There is no agreement between the old and new 
testaments, except that which is forced that the 
scriptures might seem to agree. 

Moses demanded of the people one-tenth of all they 
earned for the priests, and an extra bullock, sheep 
and lamb, three of the best of the flock for the Lord 
God's share. 

So Moses and Aaron, with their gilded calf and 
serpent and imaginary lord god, fleeced and enslaved 
the people. 

Jesus says, " take neither purse nor scrip." 

Paul says to the Corinthians : '' Have I made 
gain of you? Hath Timothy or Philemon charged 
you anything for their services or preaching ? Has 
not my gospel been free ? " 

John the Baptist forbid the use of wine and liquor. 

Jesus forbid nothing that was good, but said if any 
man became intoxicated he could not be his disciple, 
nor could he enter the kingdom of heaven. 

202 



Paul wrote to his son Timothy to drink no more 
water, but use or drink wine for the stomach's sake. 
Those three were triune teachers. 
But I leave it with you to reconcile their teachings. 
Consistenc3^ thou art a jewel. 
Jesus taught manliness triumphant. 
And we have it now. 



203 



i 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



IN closing this book I will give my Christian friends 
a specimen of the writing of the first three Chris- 
tian fathers, which will probably be new to many of 
them. I am reminded of this as I happened to be in 
a Sunday School where a reverend gentleman was 
teaching a Bible class concerning the origin of the 
Christian Scriptures. 

He said there was nothing authentically known 
about them until the fourth century. 

So for the benefit of my readers I will copy from 
the first three centuries letters, communications and 
lamentations that have in them internal evidence of 
being written at that early period. 

They are purely Christian, without any mixture of 
Judaism, written before your Bible was, which con- 
tains two parts Judaism, one part Romanism, one 
part Egyptianism or Monkish Christianity, with a 
little Greek. 

And if the following named writers are not 
acknowledged as Christian writers then I must say 
there are none : Ignatius of the first century, who 

204 



wrote a letter to the Virgin Mary, as given in a 
previous chapter ; Justin Martyr, who sent a petition 
to Ccesar, A. D. 141 ; and Origen, who wrote his 
lamentations in the third century. 

The foregoing contain only one reference to Juda- 
ism, and constitute what has since been called Christi- 
anity, but is mostly Judaism of to-day. 

That Judaism caused the rebellion in 1861, and 
prompted the trouble with the Mormons. 

In Origen's lamentations you have a fac-simile of 
Job's lamentations written without Judaism origi- 
nally, long before that wonderful lamentation of 
unhappy Jeremiah. 

Those lamentations will compare favorably with 
those embodied in Young's " Night Thoughts," or 
perhaps still better, those set forth in Milton's 
"Paradise Lost," where Adamology is illustrated 
with a vengeance. 

I am ready to declare boldly for Adam, and believe 
it was good for us that Adam ate the apple of knowl- 
edge that led him to be a farmer and gave him the 
ability to plant beans and how to mind and take care 
of his peas. 

You will perceive that the book of Lamentations is 
a Jewish book, and refers to Job, or is taken from 
that book, and magnified, and the last part made to 
refer to the calamities of the Jewish people, or the 
destruction of Jerusalem . 

This mingles Christianity with Judaism, and is 
passed off to-day as God's word and called the 
Christian Bible. 

Let a clear and well-balanced mind read all those 



205 



records without prejudice and he will see that the 
writer of the book of Jeremiah gave himself away 
when he spoke of the people of Uz, that city of Job 
in Chaldea. 

This book is a mixture of Judaism and Christianity, 
and was written in the fourth century by the order 
of Constantine and placed where such records did not 
belong, like many other books of the Bihle, written 
without date or locality, and having attached to them 
fictitious names of persons as authors. 

Of all this the book mentioned gives ample evidence. 

I would not give my honest friends anything 
but absolute truth, well authenticated with internal 
evidence that cannot lie. 

Those books are given as God's word to the Jews, 
and my learned friends must be aware tlmt there are 
no absolutely true histories in existence. 

I think Josephus wrote as true and impartial a 
history as was ever written, but it has been much 
changed, so that to day it cannot be understood by its 
readers in general, unless they understand electro- 
psychology and have no axe to grind. 

I am struck with wonder and amazement when I 
read the holy scriptures as it were. 

Luke, when describing the birth of Jesus, in the 
thirty-fifth verse of the first chapter, does not call him 
a child or baby, but a holy thing; and Milton has 
the same account in such language as this : ''Dovelike 
sat brooding on the vast abyss and made it pregnant." 
Paradise Lost, book 1. 

I suppose my good Christian brothers and reverend 
gentlemen will skip that which does not accord with 

206 



their previously conceived ideas, and accept only what 
agrees with their accepted notions. 

But I am so unfortunately organized that T cannot 
accept anything but truth. I know it is not fashion- 
able now. 

For the following petition and lamentation I am 
indebted to the learned author of the Digest, Rev. 
Robert Taylor, A. B., F. R. S., of Cambridge College, 
England. 

In giving records written by our forefathers I do 
not say much about Constantine, as all Christians 
must be familiar with them. Let this suffice : 

" Having by God's assistance gotten the victory 
over mine enemies I entreat you therefore, beloved 
ministers of God and servants of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ, to cut off the heads of this 
hydra of heresy, for so shall ye please both God and 
me." 

This much says the founder of our Christianity. 

But murder will out. 

Dr. Lardner, that eminent Christian divine, says of 
Constantine, his work, in volume two, page 342: 

He put to death: 

Maximian, His wife's father - - - - A. D. 310 

Bassianus, His sister Auastasia's husband 314 

Licinianus, His nephew, by Constantia 319 

Fausta, His wife .-.--. 320 

Sopater, His former friend - - . 321 

Licinius, His sister Constantia's husband 325 

Crispus, His own son 326 

I feel it a duty I owe to the community to give 
them the character of the founder of Christianity 

207 



as portrayed by a noted Christian author, and take 
Justin Martyr's address in the year 141 from 
Gibbous' writings : 

""Unto the Autocrat Titus ^lius Adrianus ; unto 
Antonius Pius, most noble Csesar and true Philoso- 
pher ; unto Lucius, son of the philosopher Caesar, and 
adopted of Pius, favorers of learning ; and unto the 
sacred Senate, with all the people of Rome ; on the 
behalf of those persons who, among all sorts of men, 
are unjustly hated and reproached : I, Justin, the 
son of Priscus Bacchius of Flavia Neapolis, of Pales- 
tine in Syria, as one of their number, do, suppliant 
with earnest prayers, present this my petition " — 
(^omissis omittendis) — " You hold not the scales of 
Justice even ; for, instigated by headstrong passions, 
and driven on also by the invisible whips of evil 
demons, you take great care that we shall suffer 
though your care not for what. 

" For verily I must tell you that heretofore those 
impure spirits under various apparitions went into 
the daughters of men, and defiled boys, and dressed 
up such scenes of horror that such as entered not 
into the reason of things, but judged by appearance 
only, stood aghast at the spectres ; and being shrunk 
up Avith fear and amazement, and never imagining 
them to be devils, called them gods, and invoked 
them by such titles as each devil was pleased to 
nickname himself by. 

" If then we hold some opinions near of kin to 
the poets and philosophers in greatest repute among 
you, why a.re we thus unjustly hated ? For, in say- 
ing that all things were made in this beautiful order 

208 



by God, what do we seem to say more than Plato ? 
When we teach general conflagration, what do we 
teach more than Stoics ? By opposing the worship 
of the works of men's hands, we concur with Meander 
the comedian ; and by declaring the Logos the first 
begotten of God, our Master Jesus Christ, to be 
born of a Virgin without any human mixture, and to 
be crucified and dead, and to have risen again, and 
ascended into heaA^en, we say no more in this than 
what you say of those whom you style the Sons of 
Jove. 

"For you need not be told what a parcel of sons 
the writers most in vogue among you assign to Jove. 
There's Mercury, Jove's interpreter, in imitation of 
the Logos, in worship among you. There's ^scu- 
lapius, the physician, smitten by a bolt of thunder, 
and after that ascending into heaven. There's 
Bacchus torn to pieces, and Hercules burnt to get rid 
of his pains. There's Pollux and Castor, the sons of 
Jove by Leda, and Perseus by Danae. Not to men- 
tion others, I would fain know why you always 
deify the departed Emperors, and have a fellow at 
hand to make affidavit that he saw Cgesar mount to 
heaven from the funeral pile. As to the son of 
God, called Jesus, should we allow him to be nothing 
more than man, yet the title of the Son of God is 
very justifiable upon the account of his wisdom, 
considering you have your Mercury in worship, 
under the title of the Word and Messenger of God. 

" As to the objection to our Jesus' being crucified, 
I say that suffering was common to all the fore- 
mentioned SODS of Jove, but only they suffered 

209 



another kind of death. As to his being; born of a 
virgin, you have your Perseus to balance that. As 
to his curing the lame, and the paralytic, and such 
as were cripples from their birth, this is little more 
than what you say of your ^sculapius. 

" But if the Christian profession must still meet 
with such bitter treatment, remember what 1 told you 
before, that the farthest you can go is to t?,ke away 
our lives, but the loss of this life will certainly be 
no ill bargain to us; but you indeed, and all such 
wicked enemies without repentance, shall one day 
dearly pay for this persecution in fire everlasting. 
And as far as these things shall appear agreeable 
to truth, so far we would desire you to respect 'em 
accordingly; but if they seem trifling, despise them 
as trifles ; however, don't proceed against the profes- 
sors of them, Avho are people of the most inoffensive 
lives, as severely as against your professed enemies. 
For tell you I must, that if you persist in this course 
of iniquity, you shall not escape the vengeance of 
God in the other world." 

The lamentation of Origen: 

"In bitter affliction and grief of mind, I address 
myself unto them which hereafter shall read me thus 
confoundedly. But how can I speak with tongue 
tied, with throat dammed up, and lips that refuse 
their office. I fall to the ground on my bare knees 
and make this my humble prayer and supplication 
unto all the saints, that they will help me, silly 
wretch that I am, who by reason of the superfluity of 
my sin, dare not look up unto God. O ye saints of 
the blessed God ! with watery eyes and sodden cheeks 

210 



soaked in grief and pain, I beseech you to fall down 
before the mercy-seat of God for me, miserable sinner. 
Woe is me, because of the sorrow of my heart ! Woe 
is me for affliction of my soul. Woe is me, O ray 
mother, that ever thou broughtest me forth, an heir of 
the kingdom of God, but now become an inheritor of 
the kingdom of the Devil ; a perfect man, yea a priest, 
yet found wallowing in impurity ; a man beautified 
with honor and dignity, yet in the end blemished with 
ignominy and shame ; a burning light, yet forthwith 
darkened ; a running fountain, yet by and by dried 
up; O who will give streams of tears unto mine eyes, 
that I may bewail my sorrowful plight : O my lost 
priesthood ! O my dishonored ministry ; O all you, 
my friends, tender my case ! Pity me, O all ye, my 
friends, in that I have now trodden under foot the 
seal and cognizance of my profession, and joined 
league with the devil ! Pity me, O ye, my friends, in 
that I am rejected and cast away from the face of 
God. It is for my lewd life that I am thus polluted? 
and noted with open shame. Alas, how am I fallen. 
Alas, how am I thus come to nought ! There is no 
sorrow comparable unto my sorrow ; there is no 
affliction that exceedeth my affliction ; there is no 
lamentation more lamentable than mine ; neither is 
there any sin greater than my sin ; and there is no 
salve for me. Alas ! O father Abraham ! entreat for 
me, that I be not cut off from thy coast. Rid me, 
O Lord, from the roaring lion ! The whole assembly 
of saints doth make intercession unto thee for me. 
The whole choir of angels do entreat thee for me. 
Let down upon me thy Holy Spirit, that with his 

211 



fiery countenance he may put to fliglit the crooked 
fiends of the devil ! Let me be received again into 
the joy of my God, through the prayers and interces- 
sions of the saints, through the earnest petitions of 
the Church which sorroweth over me, and humbleth 
herself unto Jesus Christ ; to whom, with the Father 
and the Holy Ghost, be all glory and honor, for ever 
and ever. Amen." So far Origen shows his 
insanity. 

I have abridged this intolerably tedious farrago, 
without breaking a single sentence, or changing or 
supplying one word not authorized by the original 
text. 

The most distinguished of all the works of Origen 
is his celebrated answer to Celsus, contained in eight 
books. 

Sketch of Constantine : 

Eusebius Pamphilus, who has written his life, seems 
to know no bounds of exaggeration in his praise- 
" I am amazed " (says this veracious bishop, on 
whose fidelity all our knowledge of ecclesiastical 
antiquity must ultimately depend), " I am amazed, 
when I contemplate such singular piety and goodness. 
Moreover when I look up to heaven, and in my mind 
behold his blessed soul living in God's presence, and 
there invested (crowned) with a blessed and unfading 
wreath of immortality ; considering this, I am op- 
pressed with silent amazement, and my weakness 
makes me dumb, resigning his due encomium to 
Almighty God, who alone can give to Constantine 
the praise he merits. 

" Constantine alone, of the Roman emperors, was 

212 



beloved of God, and hath left us the idea of his most 
pious and religious life as an inimitable example for 
other men to follow, at an humble distance. 

"Constantine was the first of all the emperors 
who was regenerated by the new birth of baptism, 
and signed with the sign of the cross ; and being 
thus regenerated, his mind was so illuminated, and 
by the raptures of faith so transported, that he ad- 
mired in himself the wonderful work of God; and 
when the centurions and captains, admitted to his 
presence, did bewail and mourn for his approaching 
death, because they should lose so good and gracious 
a prince, he answered them, ' that he only now began 
to live, and that he now only began to be sensible of 
happiness, and therefore he now only desired to 
hasten, rather than to slack or stay, his passage to 
God.' 

" For he alone of all the Roman emperors did, with 
most religious zeal, honor and worship God. He 
alone, with great liberty of speech, did profess the 
gospel of Jesus Christ. He alone, did honor his 
church more than all the rest. He alone, abolished 
the wicked adoration of idols ; and, therefore, he 
alone, both in his life and after death, hath been 
crowned with such honors as no one hath obtained, 
neither among the Grecians nor Barbarians, nor in 
former times, among the Romans. Since no age 
hath produced anything that might be paralleled or 
compared to Constantine. So much for his praise ! 

" The adulation of interested sycophants, and the 
applause of priests and bishops, will not erase the 
more convincing evidence of those stubborn things, 

213 



facts, that will not be suppressed, and cannot lie. 
Even Lardner, who omits entirely the circumstances 
of aggravation, acknowledges the deeds, which give 
a very different complexion to Constantine's charac- 
ter, from that, which the honor of Christianity re- 
quires that it should wear. The hireling voice of 
priestcraft would extol him to the skies. Nor ought 
we, in judging of the worth of a churchman's pan- 
egyric, to forget that even the cautious and ingen- 
uous Lardner, who has, without evidence of a single 
act of wrong against him, branded the amiable and 
matchlessly virtuous Julian as a persecutor, has not 
one ill word to spare for the Christian Constantine, 
who drowned his unoffending wife, Fausta, in a bath 
of boiling water, beheaded his eldest son, Crispus, 
in the very year in which he presided in the Coun- 
cil of Nice, murdered the two husbands of his sis- 
ters, Constantia and Anastasia, murdered his own 
nephew, being his sister Constantia's son, a boy only 
twelve years old, and murdered a few others,* which 
actions, Lardner, with truly Christian moderation, 
tells us, 'seem to cast a reflection upon him.' 
Among those few others, never be it forgotten, was 
Sopater, the Pagan priest, who fell a victim and a 

*His slaughter bill, methodically arranged, runs thus : 

Maximian, His wife's father - - - - A. D. 310 

Bassianus, His sister Anastasia's husband 314 

Licinianus, His nephew, by Constantia 319 

Fausta, His wife 320 

Sopater, His former friend - - - - 321 

Licinius, His sister Constantia's husband 325 

Crispus His own son - - - - - 326 

214 



martyr to the sinceiity of his attachment to Pagan- 
ism, and to the honesty of his refusing the consola- 
tions of heathenism to the conscience of the royal 
murderer. 

"The death of Crispus (says Dr. Lardner) is 
altogether without any good excuse ; so likewise is 
the death of the young J^icinianus, who could not 
then be more than a little over eleven years of age, 
and appears not to have been charged Avith any 
fault, and can hardly be suspected of any."* 

* Lardner, vol. 2, p. 342. 







215 



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